Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fifteen days in the future

Ten days after the body was discovered

The night a pup has come into his own

~~ Jack ~~

“Ha! I win! Get dunked!”

“Bro, how is that legal! That’s bullshit!”

“Just pure skill, little man.”

“Hey! One more round and I’ll fuck you up, any stage, any character.”

“Ooo, I’m getting scared!”

The sounds of Jack’s roommates filter in through his curtain, despite the music playing through his earbuds. In lieu of Durham’s usual challenge of wrestling to settle disputes, he and Voss the fennec fox have turned to video games to vent their frustrations at each other. Although, considering how loudly the pair swear at each other, it’s turned out to be just as disruptive. Jack leans his head back against the wall of his bunk and sighs, homework and textbooks strewn on his bed around him. ‘It’s almost ten at night, how do they still have so much energy? ’ He thinks to himself. ‘If I turn my music up even more, it’ll just hurt my ears. Usually Legoshi asks them to keep it down, and everyone listens to him! Just because he’s a big wolf and I’m a nice dog. I wonder why he hasn’t said anything yet.’

After struggling with himself for a few moments, the labrador carefully packs up his books and opens the curtain to his bunk, only to be blasted with another round of swearing, this time from Durham. Wincing, Jack puts on a smile and takes out his earbuds. “Hey, guys! Could you keep it down? It’s getting late,” he says, looking down from his top bunk. When neither of the other two canines respond, Jack’s expression falls into a frustrated frown. “Miguno! Can you help me out here?” He asks above the racket.

The hyena pulls his head back into the room from out of the open window and looks back with a bleary-eyed expression and bloodshot eyes. “What?” He replies, putting his vape down on the cushion where it is promptly picked up by Collot.

“Are you getting high again?” Jack asks suspiciously.

“I’m not high, you’re higher than me up there!” Miguno says, leaning back and cackling like it’s the funniest thing in the world.

“Oh for goodness sake,” Jack mutters, rolling his eyes and begins to climb down from his bunk. It’s only when he finally stands in front of the television and blocks the view of the game that Durham and Voss pay attention.

“Hey, what the hell man!”

“Yeah! I was in a combo!”

“Oh, so you’re suddenly buddies again when you’re against me?” Jack asks sarcastically with his hands on his hips. “It’s late and I want to actually get some sleep tonight, if you don’t mind.”

Voss tosses his hands in the air and lays back dramatically. “Okay mum.”

“We were getting kind of rowdy, to be fair,” Durham says guiltily, ears drooping. “Sorry Jack, we’ll finish up after this round.”

“Hey, has anyone seen Legoshi?” Collot’s voice cuts through the room and causes all the occupants to look at the wolf’s bunk with its closed curtains.

“Isn’t he there? I thought he came back already?” Jack asks, anxiety beginning to set in. ‘It’s not like him to sneak out, ’ the worried thought begins to gnaw at the back of his mind.

“We’ve been vaping since we got back early from band, and he hasn’t been in yet,” Miguno drawls, laying back and letting his head hang over the end of the window seat to look at Legoshi’s bunk.

“Why didn’t you say anything!?” Jack squeaks.

“Bro, I’m baked, I didn’t even realise it was late.”

“You’ve been getting high way too often lately, it’s not good for your lungs,” the labrador admonishes. Before he can start another lecture, however, an unfamiliar knock rings out into the dorm. All of the boys turn their heads to the door, but Jack ends up being the one to answer it. As he pulls it open slowly, he steps back slightly in surprise as he sees the large figure of a bear in the doorway. “Oh! You’re…” it takes a second for Jack to recognise the animal before continuing, “you’re Riz! You’re in the Drama club with Legoshi, right? Do you know where he is? We’re all really worried.”

“Uh, yeah, he’s here,” Riz says quietly, his worried tone sending Jack’s anxiety spiking even more. “He got into a fight with someone who was sneaking onto school grounds and I helped get him here afterwards.” The bear steps to one side to reveal the wolf being supported with one large arm over his shoulders.

Legoshi isn’t usually the most emotive canine, but his hollow expression causes Jack to gasp. It looks like light will never return to the wolf’s eyes, and he refuses to catch his best friend’s eyes, silently looking down at the floor. Jack immediately gestures for both of them to come inside, and the other occupants of the dorm stiffen as the huge bear helps their friend into the room. The smell of blood enters the space with them, and Durham immediately disappears into the bathroom to rummage in the cupboards. 

“I tried to patch him up a bit, but I’m not really good at it.” Riz scratches the back of his head as Legoshi is led to sit on the floor and fussed over by Jack.

The wolf sits motionless in the middle of the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. Jack cringes at the sight of his torn and bloodied uniform, but also at a strange caustic smell about his clothes. Voss turns off the television and begins to sniff at Legoshi’s hands as Durham returns with a large box of medical supplies.

“I’m going to have to look at your shoulder, Legoshi. Can you take off your shirt?” The coyote asks as he unpacks some of the contents of the box. After a long moment, the wolf nods and begins fumbling with the buttons.

“Who was it?” Voss asks, sniffing again. “I can’t smell much over that weird acid smell, except bear of course.”

Jack rounds angrily on Riz and pokes him with an accusatory finger. “You didn’t do this, did you?” He nearly shouts. “What, you beat him up and then bring him back because you feel bad? He already has enough going on in his life without bullies like you!”

Riz almost trips back against the bunks as he raises his hands in surrender. “I didn’t! I swear! We were out late for a rehearsal and I found him like that!”

“It’s okay, Jack.” The mumble rolls over the labrador and stops him in his tracks, despite how quiet it is. “He helped me. I want him to stay here.” 

Jack deflates as he turns back, tears brimming at his eyes to see his friend so injured. With his shirt off, the extent of his injuries are clear to the room, and Durham inhales sharply at the ragged claw and bite marks on Legoshi’s shoulder. Riz cautiously sits down beside the wolf and reaches out a hand to him. Legoshi hesitates, but slowly takes the hand as Durham begins to replace the inexpertly applied bandages. Jack sits down and lays his hand on his friend’s arm as well, trying desperately to show any support he can.

“Can you sleep in my bunk tonight, Jack?” Legoshi asks, his voice smaller than any of the dorm have heard, except for the labrador. Even then, the last time he heard it was when they were still pups.

“Of course, bud, anything.” Jack forces a smile.

Once the wounds are treated and the bandages are fixed, Riz leaves for his own dorm, and Legoshi is put to bed by his dormmates. Before he joins the wolf, Jack catches Miguno looking at Legoshi’s bunk with an strange expression. “What? We’ve known each other since we were kids.” Jack says, ready to fight anyone giving his best friend a hard time.

“Nothing! Sorry, I’m just high,” the hyena apologises, causing Jack to roll his eyes.

When Jack gets into the bunk and closes the curtains, Legoshi is turned with his back to the labrador. Despite their size difference, Jack tries his best to cuddle up to the larger canid. When he gets close, he can feel slight tremors from Legoshi as he cries silently. 

The Present

Fifteen days before a pup comes into his own

Five days before the body is discovered

~~ Legoshi ~~

Legoshi shivers under his duvet and pulls the covers tighter around his body. Despite the dorm being well insulated and the room warmed by the body heat of several large mammals, Legoshi finds himself shivering more and more lately. He can hear the sounds of his room mates getting ready, and he tightens his cocoon around himself further. ‘Maybe if I disappear into these sheets, no one will know I’m here and they’ll let me sleep for longer, ’ he thinks to himself, although he knows he’s kidding himself. As if on cue, the curtains are wrenched back to reveal the big fluffy face of Collot.

“Legoshi! Time to get up!” The sheepdog says in his usual boisterous tone. “Ah! No you don’t!” He adds in response to the wolf burrowing further into his duvet with a disgruntled groan. Legoshi feels Collot begin to pull him bodily from his bed and deposit him on the floor before rolling him over. “Man , you are heavy, since when did you get so big?”

‘Since I hit puberty? ’ Legoshi thinks sarcastically. He knows that the large canine is showing love in his own way by dragging him out of bed, but it doesn’t make it any easier not to scowl.

“Come on, Lego! What’s wrong?” Jack’s voice filters in from outside the comfortable darkness, and Legoshi loosens his grip on the duvet slightly, his frown melting away. His best friend has always managed to be able to cheer him up no matter what was wrong. The labrador peels apart some of the cocoon, and his smiling face almost glows in the sunlight streaming through the window. Jack’s smile turns to a worried frown as his hand brushes against Legoshi’s face. “You’re kinda hot, are you sick?”

The labrador’s hand is so warm, and for a moment, Legoshi considers grabbing Jack and pulling him into the cocoon. “Feel cold,” he mumbles.

“Yo, Jack thinks Legoshi is hot? Kinda gay,” Voss’s voice carries over from the fox’s bed and causes a snigger from some of the others.

Legoshi unwraps himself from his duvet reluctantly and stretches before shivering again with a groan. “Can we turn the heater on?” He asks pitifully as he re-makes his bed.

“No time, we’ll be gone before it warms the room up enough!” Collot says, shaking his head. “I think we all know what this requires though,” he announces, looking around the room. “Cuddle puddle!”

Before Legoshi can protest, all members of room 701 leap to tackle the large wolf, except for Voss who grumbles something about needing to get something from the bathroom. Legoshi stands surrounded on all sides by his friends, quickly warmed up by their body heat and fur, and he sighs happily. “Thanks guys, I needed this,” he says after a few moments, his tail wagging despite being trapped to his leg. When the group hug breaks, Legoshi retrieves his phone while getting ready, and his tail begins to wag faster as he looks at his messages.

“What’s got you so excited?” Jack asks, smiling at the wolf’s tail.

“I’m hanging out with Tem again,” Legoshi replies shyly, showing his best friend his phone screen.

“That’s great, Lego! He’s from Drama club, right? It’s great you’re making more friends outside of us,” Jack gives the larger canine a quick squeeze on the arm before getting ready himself. “You should invite him over some time! Or maybe we can all go to B-Strike some time?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Legoshi shrugs awkwardly. “He’s kinda popular though, I don’t think he’d have time to hang out with a bunch of carnivores.”

“He’s taking time to hang out with you, isn’t he? You never know. Now let’s get going to breakfast!”

Legoshi stays mostly silent as he and his room mates make their way to the cafeteria. His tendency towards depression has been well known to them since he first tried going on medication for it and Voss tossed his pills onto the floor while looking for something in Legoshi’s drawer. The wolf winces at the memory of explaining some of his circumstances to the room, or at least being there while Jack explained it. The labrador has always been there for him since they were kids, and Legoshi still feels like he has forced the smaller canine into being his advocate. Legoshi shakes his head to banish the thought and frowns as he attempts a mental exercise he found on the internet.

‘Jack said that he wants to help me because we are friends, and we made a promise not to lie to each other after…that thing happened. He wouldn’t lie to me, just like I don’t lie to him, and I help him too. I’m not using him, we help each other.’ Legoshi goes through the litany, one he repeats most days of the week, and still can’t help feeling a little like he’s kidding himself. The attempts at going on medication didn’t end up working, but the school nurse wasn’t able to give Legoshi the amount of help he needs, and so his foray into getting treatment stopped soon after the financial barrier of private therapy presented itself. Still, the wolf can’t help feeling like he’s getting a bit better at accepting help, and isn’t that progress? The fact that he can’t stop the combined force of his room mates’ affection has certainly helped in that regard. Legoshi’s tail begins to wag more as he tunes into the conversation about video games being held by his room mates.

“I think that farming sims still count as video games, even if there’s no real objective in the same way as other games,” he says ponderously. “After all, isn’t relaxation the real objective of all video games?”

A long moment of silence proceeds the statement as the group digests the proposal, and Legoshi suddenly feels a spike of anxiety. 

“Damn, Legoshi, I didn’t think of it like that,” Miguno says thoughtfully, his tone dispelling the wolf’s tension.

“He’s still wrong, I don’t play video games to relax, I play them to get pumped after a long day of boring shit!” Voss says from Collot’s shoulder, and the whole group descends into bickering and heated debate once more.

~~

Legoshi steps out of the lecture building and into the sunlight, closing his eyes and standing for a moment in the warming rays. The moment of peace helps to quell the frustration from his lecture, and his mind begins to wander to the animal he’s about to spend time with. Legoshi still wonders why a herbivore would choose to socialise with such a weird carnivore such as himself. At first, he reflexively pushed Tem away, assuming that it was some kind of joke the alpaca was playing on him. Legoshi winces at the memory of the lecture that he received from Tem about not assuming the worst of other people’s intentions after. Now, the wolf continues meeting up with him partially out of curiosity. ‘Am I just spending time with him so I can feel good about myself? Maybe I’m just being selfish,’ Legoshi thinks.

“What’re you thinking about there, Legoshi?”

The wolf startles at the voice right by his elbow, jumping to the side slightly and looking around wildly before seeing Tem standing beside him. The alpaca grins at Legoshi’s reaction.

“I didn’t mean to scare you, but you were standing there in the sun for a while and our lunch is getting cold,” Tem says, gesturing with a stack of plastic boxes, their insides misted over with condensation.

“Oh, I wasn’t really thinking about anything,” Legoshi replies, taking some of the boxes off of the stack. “You didn’t have to get food for me, you know, I could have waited until after seeing you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Tem snorts as he starts to walk down the path to the outdoor benches, Legoshi following behind timidly. “A big guy like you needs to eat regularly, and definitely needs to eat more than I see you do, you’re way too skinny.”

The wolf smiles as he follows the smaller herbivore. Despite the personal comment, he appreciates Tem being so honest with him. Most other animals look at Legoshi with either fear or suspicion, and the outspoken herbivore’s attitude is a breath of fresh air. The wolf still can’t help noticing the disapproving looks cast at them from other students, carnivores and herbivores alike, and he attempts to shrink into himself even more than he usually does. “Wouldn’t you rather eat somewhere less public?” Legoshi asks in a murmur, regretting the words even as they leave his mouth. ‘Now you just sound like more of a creep, well done you dumb dog, ’ he thinks.

“What?” Tem asks, a confused expression on his face. When he looks around at their surroundings, his confusion turns to angry defiance. “There’s nothing wrong with us hanging out in public!” He announces to the onlookers with a glare. “How has your day been, Legoshi?” The herbivore asks, still in the same tone as if he is daring anyone to interject.

“It’s been okay,” Legoshi says, a little unsure. “I just had a chemistry lecture that I couldn’t concentrate on, though. I don’t understand balancing equations, I just find it so hard!” The genuine show of emotion at the end causes Tem’s expression to quirk into a smile.

“I find that hard too, I guess I’m just made for the stage instead of a lab.” The alpaca puts one hand to his forehead dramatically, coaxing a rare chuckle from the wolf behind him.

“You do look good on stage,” Legoshi says. “Your wool really shines under the lights.”

“Only because you do such a good job with the filters!” Tem gives a smile that feels like sunlight in the wolf’s chest, and his tail begins to wag behind him. “Speaking of Drama club, I invited Riz to eat with us as well, it’s why I got so much food.”

Some of the sunlight turns cold at the thought of a third person being at their lunchtime meetup, and Legoshi has to force his tail to keep wagging in order to mask his disappointment. “Yeah, that’s okay, it’ll be good to hang out with other club members!” The effort of faking enthusiasm is difficult to muster, but the wolf tries his best. ‘Of course he has other friends, it makes sense he’d want to hang out not just with me. I’m probably too weird, anyway.’

The alpaca waves enthusiastically ahead of them, and Legoshi sees the hulking figure of Riz sitting at a bench wave back, albeit hesitantly upon noticing the wolf. ‘Seems like I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t expecting the other.’

~~ Tem ~~

‘This is going so well, Legoshi’s tail is even wagging! I knew this would be a good idea!’ Tem smiles with inner confidence at his well executed plan. He befriended both large carnivores individually in Drama club, but he couldn’t help notice that neither of them really have many friends outside their room mates. Both of them have opened up about their own troubles related to being carnivores, so what is better than bringing them together so they can support each other? ‘And now, my cunning plan is in effect, mwahaha!'

“So, how’s preparation for Adler going, Riz?” Tem asks aloud, opening and unpacking some of the boxes and setting out plastic cutlery for the other two.

“It’s going fine, but the cues are really hard to get down,” Riz replies, glancing at Legoshi as the wolf begins to eat a serving of okonomiyaki dusted with some kind of nutritional yeast that Tem was assured is good for carnivores. “Louis is very insistent about them being ‘as perfect as his acting will be on stage’.” The bear grimaces as he quotes the de facto head of their club.

“Ugh, he’s so up himself!” Tem rolls his eyes. “I mean, he is the best actor we have, but does he have to micromanage so much? Does he talk about the lighting as well in the same way, Legoshi?”

The wolf finishes his bite behind one hand and nods somberly. “Always. He talks about how actors are the most essential part of the Drama club, and that our job is to support them. He can perform in a field, but without the actors, the stage is just a piece of wood.”

A low rumble emanates from Riz, and he mutters something Tem can’t hear, but Legoshi’s ears twitch and he looks sideways at the bear. After a moment of shared eye contact between the two carnivores, the wolf nods slightly. Tem realises it’s the first time either of his friends have acknowledged each other. ‘Maybe a common enemy will bring them together? Well, sorry Louis, but I’m sure you can take a little more gossip!’

“What was that?” Tem asks innocently.

“Nothing,” Legoshi responds, lying terribly.

“Whaat! No, you have to tell me now! It’s not fair that you have way better hearing compared to me!” He complains playfully before changing to a conspiratorial expression and leaning in. “Was it about Louis? I hate how much he puts down the stage crew if that’s what it is. Come on, you can tell me! I’m really good at keeping secrets.”

Again, wordless communication exchanges between the carnivores in knowing looks, and Legoshi sits back slightly with a grimace of his own. Interest and concern grow in equal measure in Tem’s mind, but he stays silent and looks expectantly at Riz.

The bear reaches up and scratches the back of his neck, a quirk that Tem has come to associate with Riz being nervous about something. “He doesn’t just put us down because we’re part of the stage crew. He kind of, uh,” he trails off, not quite looking the alpaca in the eyes.

Tem’s brows furrow, slowly putting the pieces together, but still not wanting to make that next logical step. “Then why?”

“It’s because we’re carnivores,” Riz says lamely. “He hates carnivores in general, and us specifically, although I don’t really know why he hates Legoshi and I so much. He doesn’t seem to really mind Bill, so maybe it’s because we’re quiet?”

“But he gives herbivores a hard time as well,” Tem protests weakly. “And he’s the Beastars candidate, would they really elect a speciesist for that?”

Both carnivores avoid the alpaca’s gaze, and it feels like the distance between him and them has suddenly grown. It’s not just that Louis would be so prejudiced, Tem isn’t so naive to assume the deer is perfect, but it’s the fact it’s being directed at his friends. Regularly, too, it seems.

“He’s demanding of everyone, but he’s different with carnivores.” Legoshi’s mumble is almost too quiet to hear. “He always relates the acting styles and choices of carnivores to our instincts and how dangerous we are, but he doesn’t do that to herbivores. He acts like we all secretly hate him for being a herbivore, and so it’s okay for him to hate us. I don’t even hate him, I just wish he wasn’t so hurtful sometimes.”

It’s the most Tem has ever heard the wolf say when in the company of others, and it enrages the alpaca that what should be a wonderful moment is marred by the topic of discrimination. “That’s horrible! That’s awful! I’m going to go to Sanu about this right now!”

Legoshi looks alarmed and grabs the herbivore’s wrist quickly, easily not letting him leave. Almost immediately after he does, however, he releases the arm like he’s been stung. “I’m sorry! Don’t talk to Sanu, please. He won’t do anything and then it will just make things worse when Louis hears about it.”

“Then I’ll go to Principal Gon!” Tem says, but this time is stopped with Riz’s hand on his other wrist.

“Please don’t go to him either, Principal Gon is probably already aware and just does nothing if it can’t be proven.” Riz lets go of the alpaca’s arm, and his eyes widen as he looks down. “Shit!” He exclaims before pulling out a box of plasters from his bag, a few of which he offers to Tem.

Looking confused, the herbivore looks down at where he was grabbed by the bear, and sees several cuts from the sides of the carnivore’s claws. In his righteous anger, Tem didn’t even notice them being opened. When he looks back up at the other two, both carnivores are leaning as far away from him as possible. “It’s okay!” The alpaca reassures. “They’re only small. I didn’t mean to be so pushy about Louis, it just makes me so angry when that kind of thing happens and people get away with it.”

“I’m sorry,” Riz breathes, eyes wide with both guilt and fear. “I’m so sorry”.The change in demeanor from calm confident bear to terrified cub makes Tem even more uneasy.

“Tem, I think I should take Riz somewhere he can calm down,” Legoshi says decisively, standing up and putting a hand on the bear’s shoulder.

“It’s really okay!” The herbivore repeats, upset that things have disintegrated so quickly. “I don’t blame you, Riz, it happens!”

Legoshi’s eyes are gentle as he looks into Tem’s. “We know, it’s just that it looks bad for two carnivores to be hanging around a bleeding herbivore, even if it’s a small injury. We’re not safe to be around.”

The words are said so matter-of-fact, tinged with sadness accepted long ago, that Tem has no answer to them. He can only nod as the wolf packs up the unfinished meals and leads Riz away. Legoshi’s gentle smile feels like it’s being burned into his mind, even as the carnivores walk off.

“Are you okay? I saw how that bear and wolf attacked you when you tried to get away! That was so scary!”

Tem looks to his side to see a horse and an antelope standing beside the recently vacated bench, the latter looking angrily after the retreating pair.

“Yeah, we should report them to the principal like you were saying,” the antelope says. “Fucking meat-eaters, can’t even wait until night time to attack people.”

“They’re my friends !” Tem yells with a growing heat at the two herbivores, and storms off, ignoring the confused looks from other animals seeing his outburst. ‘What do you mean, ‘we’re not safe to be around’, Legoshi? You’re my friend! I feel safer around you than around most herbivores!’

The wolf’s sad smile filters back into his mind, and Tem’s heart breaks yet again.

Chapter Text

~~ Riz ~~

Today seemed like it was going to be such a good day when Riz woke up. He has been feeling better lately, and he hasn’t had as many splitting migraines since talking to Tem about the effects of his medication. It’s almost comical how just talking about the pills with someone willing to listen has helped him cope. Class has been actually good, and then he was going to see his friend again and get to imagine having him as a boyfriend. Riz knows that the fantasy is never going to happen, at least not with Tem continuing to fawn over Els, the goat in their club. However, the bear can’t help feeling that any kind of romantic relationship isn’t on the cards for him with anyone anyway, and so he allows himself his fantasies.

But that didn’t happen.

What Riz thought was going to be a nice lunch with just him and Tem, like it should be, was ruined when this damn wolf came slinking into the one time in Riz’s day he was really looking forward to. And now, because of course it just had to get worse, the fucking wolf is having to lead him away after he accidentally hurt Tem. 

“I don’t need to be babied,” Riz mutters, shoving Legoshi’s hand off of his shoulder and stepping away from the wolf. The pair have walked away from the bulk of other students and now find themselves at the bottom of a stairwell. The pain of a burgeoning migraine stabs into Riz’s left eye and he clutches his head irritably. As he brings his hand closer to his face, however, the pain is suddenly overwhelmed by a very different sensory experience. ‘ What’s that smell? Like honey, only warmer, fuller, ’ Riz thinks to himself, closing his eyes and sniffing the air again. ‘ It’s so smooth and sweet, where is it coming from?’

“RIZ.” Legoshi’s voice makes the bear open his eyes angrily and round on the wolf, heart pounding in his ears as the pain comes back into focus. Riz grabs Legoshi by the front of his shirt and shoves him against the wall of the stairwell hard, a low rumbling growl coming from deep in the bear’s chest.

“What do you want, Legoshi? Why did you ruin my time with Tem?” Riz snarls, breathing hard. “Are you trying to snatch him away?”

“What? No!” The wolf retorts with equal measure anger and confusion. “You shouldn’t be hanging out with him in the first place! You’re dangerous to be around him!”

Riz’s head pounds and his lips pull back to bare his fangs. “ SHUT UP ,” he shouts, utterly offended at the words. “Tem is my friend, I wouldn’t hurt him!”

“Riz, you have his blood on your face,” Legoshi’s voice is so matter-of-fact that Riz’s spiralling brain gets thrown off track and has to reset. He lets Legoshi go and steps back, fear and shame once more taking him over. Again, the wonderful smell assails his nose, and Riz is horrified to find that it is coming from the claws that opened Tem’s skin.

Riz sits down heavily and tries to desperately wipe the blood off of his claws. ‘ How could I lose it like that over Tem’s blood? That’s disgusting. I’m disgusting. ’

“I’m a fucking monster,” he wails quietly.

The bear is so absorbed in his own shame that he doesn’t realise Legoshi offering a packet of tissues until it’s almost forced under his nose. Looking up, Legoshi’s gaze isn’t completely bereft of judgement, but it isn’t the accusatory glare that he expected. The wolf stands there silently, holding the tissues out until they’re taken. When Riz begins to clean his claws, Legoshi settles sits down on the ground in front of him, his knees against his chest and lanky arms resting by his sides. It doesn’t look comfortable, but he makes no move to change his position.

“Your breathing has slowed. Are you feeling better?” Legoshi asks.

Riz nods, glancing away from the wolf’s emotionless stare. ‘ Why are his eyes like that? ’ He thinks. ‘ They aren’t round at all like other wolves, just two small dots. His stare is really creepy .’ He gives back the packet of tissues and mumbles a thank you.

“You’ve got some on your face. Do you want help getting it off?” Legoshi’s voice doesn’t change from his usual monotone, and Riz can’t tell if he’s making a joke or not. However, to his sullen horror, Riz can’t seem to find his vocal cords. He gives another silent nod, this one so small to be almost imperceptible.

Legoshi retrieves a small bottle of water from his backpack and wets a tissue with it before carefully wiping away the blood from Riz’s fur. The bear fidgets with his hands and occasionally glances at Legoshi’s expression, fearing the rug to be pulled from under him at any time to reveal some horrible joke at Riz’s expense. Each red tissue is dropped to the side in a growing pile, and the bear tries not to look at it.

“You’re pretty weird,” Riz says, finally finding his voice. “Most people would be scared of a bear covered in blood who shoved you against a wall.”

Legoshi’s concentrated expression changes to first confusion, and second to alarm. “Ah! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be weird! Here, take the tissues, you don’t need me to clean your face up!” He rambles while stepping back.

Riz inwardly as he does, regretting his instinct to insult the wolf. ‘ It’s not like it’s going to make you feel better. Nothing does, ’ he sneers inwardly. However he feels about his actions, the fact that Tem brought Legoshi to their hangout, without asking, still stings. “It’s fine,” Riz says dismissively, although even he can tell how unconvincing he sounds. “What were you even doing there today?” He adds, rallying a little. “And what was that ‘nothing’ excuse when Tem asked you about Louis? You couldn’t think of anything better to say? Tem doesn’t need to hear about that shit.” The words come out a little rougher than Riz intended, but the constant smell of blood is making him feel on edge.

For his part, Legoshi’s teeth pull back in a half-snarl that surprises the bear with the force of his emotions. “You were the one who went all in-depth about it!” He says, trying to shout and keep his voice down at the same time. “I organised to hang out with Tem today! We’re friends !”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Riz growls, this time his anger having been properly provoked. He stands up from the stair, making an imposing figure in front of the wolf.

“You were getting so worked up you attacked me, just because you smelled Tem’s blood!” Legoshi barks, standing up to his own full height, which Riz is mildly surprised to find is almost as tall as him without the slouch. “You should stop being his friend for his safety!”

“Tem is safe around me!” Riz retorts. “I’ve spent lots of time with him, and he even let me touch his wool! And he was completely safe!”

“Tem let you touch his wool as well?” Legoshi asks, horrified. “He doesn’t know how dangerous carnivores are!”

“ You touched his wool?! You’re a carnivore too though!” Riz spits.

“Just before, you said you were a fucking monster!” Legoshi says, causing Riz to falter at his own words being turned back on him.

“Isn’t that what you think about yourself, too?” The bear asks quietly.

Both carnivores stop arguing, deflating slightly as looks of horror and shame pass over their faces. Riz sits back down, but this time is joined by Legoshi hesitantly sitting next to him.

“Neither of us are going to stop being his friend, right?” Legoshi asks.

“I know I’m not,” Riz admits, shrugging.

“Fine. Then we need to keep up to date on each other, we can swap numbers now.” Legoshi’s voice is incredibly confident for someone suggesting such a strange solution.

“What?” Riz asks incredulously. “Why?”

“You don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you, so, we watch each other,” the wolf reasons. “It makes it easier on both of us, and it’ll make Tem happy.”

Riz opens and shuts his mouth a few times as he processes the proposal. Eventually, he looks away, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why does he even want us to be friends? He was totally trying to set us up on some kind of friend date or something.”

This time, it’s Legoshi’s turn to shrug. “We’re both loners?” He points out.

The bear goes to deny it, saying that he’s friends with his roommates, but he is struck with the realisation that, outside of those five other bears, there aren’t many animals he actually socialises with. The stress from his migraines has always made it hard to let people reach out to him, until that day when Tem said he was terrifying. It made Riz feel like, if someone else can be that honest with him, then maybe he could be.

“True,” Riz finally agrees. After a moment, he gets his phone out from his pocket and hands it over to Legoshi unlocked. “Here, text yourself with my phone.”

The wolf nods, following the instruction silently. Now that he isn’t angry, Legoshi has returned to his usual maudlin expression. Riz notices for the first time that it isn’t just that the wolf is not very expressive, but that his small pupils mask a dullness in his eyes. Riz can’t remember him ever having looked excited or happy about something, except maybe for stage lighting. His phone is proffered back, and Riz takes it gingerly.

“Bye, Riz.” 

“Yeah. Bye, Legoshi.”

~~ Jack ~~

The sound of Collot and Durham arguing about the characters in some show dominate the table in the cafeteria where the Jack and the rest of his dorm sit. At least, the rest of the dorm not counting Legoshi. The labrador smiles at the thought his best friend socialising more, especially with such an outgoing herbivore like Tem. Even he has heard of the alpaca, and by all accounts, he seems like a genuinely nice person. Now, Jack and Miguno spectate the two canines trading words and occasionally make comments to one another to tease the arguers.

“Guys, can you two chill out? You’re really throwing your arms around like that, you’ll fucking knock me off the table,” Voss complains.

“Sorry Voss!” Collot apologises with a grumble. “We usually have Legoshi to settle debates, but he’s not here! And these losers don’t know what we’re talking about.” He gestures to Jack and Miguno.

“Loser?” Miguno raises one eyebrow and grins. “You three are the losers for watching that dumb anime,” he teases while Jack giggles.

“It’s not dumb! It’s really nuanced and cool!” Durham bristles. “Where is he, anyway?” He looks around for Legoshi.

“He’s with his new boyfriend,” Voss sniggers as he digs into his lunch. “That herbi.”

“Oh yeah! It’s cool he’s making new friends, even if it’s not another wolf,” Durham says, scratching the back of his head nervously. “I mean, doesn’t he know how weird he is to herbivores? He doesn’t need carnivores thinking he’s a weirdo too.”

“Hey! Not cool, dude,” Miguno retorts, causing the coyote to wilt under his disapproval. “Legoshi needs any friends who treat him well, and this Ten or whatever sounds like a good dude who might introduce him to other people! We all made a deal at the end of last year to help him with this, and that means not making him feel bad for any part of his first real friend that’s not us,” he crosses his arms as he lectures, and Jack feels a flush of relief that the hyena is on his side in this matter.

“Yeah, and Voss, you have to stop making those stupid gay jokes,” Jack says, taking the opportunity to call out the fennec for the annoying behaviour.

“Why? He’s not gay, is he?” Voss asks with a frown.

“No, at least I don’t think so!” Jack says impatiently.

“Are you gay?!” The fox asks with his eyes wide.

“No! For Rex’s sake, Voss, it doesn’t matter if someone’s gay or not for gay jokes to be bad! It makes everyone uncomfortable talking about stuff that they might be struggling with, even if it’s not related to being gay!” Jack says hotly, attracting the curious ears of a few passer’s by.

“Okay! Jeez!” Voss says in a dismissive tone. “I won’t!”

“Hey, guys,” Collot’s voice cuts in between them. “Legoshi’s coming into the cafeteria right now, and he’s alone. Oh man, he looks especially bad.”

“When doesn’t he?” Voss grumbles, but is quickly hushed by Durham. 

Jack looks around the crowded cafeteria and spots the hunched figure of Legoshi walking through and just managing to get into the end of the carnivore meal line before it closed. His high hopes from minutes ago are quickly dashed on the rocks of reality, and he tries not to look too sad for the wolf. Collot was right, Legoshi seems to be hunched over even more than usual, and his eyes look around the room constantly. When the wolf finally makes his way over and sits down beside Jack, he eats quickly and silently, pointedly ignoring the looks coming from the rest of the group. ‘ It must have gone really badly if he doesn’t want to talk about it, ’ Jack thinks. ‘ Usually he talks about Tem for an hour after they hang out. ’

As the table slowly returns to its previous buzz, Jack moves one leg so that it touches Legoshi’s in a silent show of support.

~~~

“You want to talk about something, big guy?” Jack asks Legoshi later on as they sit on the roof in a drained pool. The secluded spot quickly became a place for Legoshi to escape to when he feels overwhelmed in his first year at Cherryton with Jack. Now, Jack sits beside the larger canine and nudges him encouragingly. 

Legoshi shrugs and looks intensely at a ladybug on the tip of his finger.

“About hanging out with Tem, maybe?” The labrador prompts, rolling his eyes. “I can tell something happened that upset you, so what is it?”

“Riz was there.”

Jack furrows his brow in confusion at the non-answer. “Who?”

“Riz, from drama club. He was there too,” Legoshi huffs, but Jack can tell he’s still holding something back. “I thought it was going to just be me and Tem, but then it wasn’t. I don’t know why it bothers me so much, but it does.”

“Okay, that sounds annoying, but at least you already knew Riz. It’s not like he’s a stranger,” Jack reasons.

Legoshi screws his nose up in frustration as he tries to untangle his feelings. “It just really threw me off, I guess. I was already kind of anxious, but then things changed, and I had to act happy so I wouldn’t upset Tem.”

The labrador nods in understanding. All throughout their childhood, both Jack and Legoshi found solace in the mutual understanding that they can be completely honest about their emotions with each other. Although he finds it annoying, Jack knows that acting certain way for appearances is much more exhausting for the somber canine.

“And it went badly,” Legoshi adds, setting the ladybug down and staring at it on the ground. “I don’t really want to talk about how, but it went badly, and I’m scared that Tem won’t want to hang out with me again.”

Jack raises his eyebrows, surprised and trying to think about what could have happened. “Tem’s nice guy, I think you’d have to really hurt him or something to make him want to just dump you as a friend. And no offense Lego, but I really can’t see you being able to do something that, you’re just too kind!”

Legoshi heaves another sigh, breath blowing the ladybug’s wings open and prompting it to fly away. Just as Jack is about to try say something encouraging, a series of buzzing sounds emanates from the wolf’s pocket. He pulls his phone out to reveal messages from two separate people. Legoshi’s expression shifts to one of confusion, but his body un-tenses slightly as he reads. “Tem wants to hang out again with me and Riz, he says he wants to talk what happened today.

“That sounds great!”

“...yeah.” Legoshi still looks uncertain, but Jack smiles at the sight of his tail wagging hesitantly. “It’ll be good.”

~~~

Two days later

Three days before the body is found

~~ Legoshi ~~

Legoshi squints in the brightly lit cafeteria as he anxiously waits in line. He barely slept the night before, tossing and turning in his bed.. Along with the general trepidation about meeting up for a difficult conversation, Legoshi keeps hearing that antelope’s words repeating themselves in his head.

‘We should report them to the principal like you were saying. Fucking meat-eaters, can’t even wait until night time to attack people.’

The wolf forces himself to swallow the ball of nerves down, ears flicking at every voice around him. So far, the hammer of judgement has yet to bring itself down on him, so Legoshi assumes that the report was never made, but that hasn’t made it any easier to sleep. On top of everything going on, a dull ache has been worrying several teeth on the left side of his jaw.

“Hey! Keep it moving, dog! I’m hungry!”

Legoshi startles as the voice yells from two people behind him, and he apologises as he stumbles forward into the gap in front. He taps the claws on his thumb and middle finger together repeatedly, trying to focus on his surroundings. As he waits for the carnivores ahead of him to get their food, Legoshi flicks his gaze to the animal behind him. Riz stands looking straight ahead, his usual soft expression tensed into a half frown. Almost immediately after Tem reached out to both of them, the bear had contacted Legoshi privately with a string of messages that he promptly deleted. Legoshi didn’t see their content, but Riz hasn’t acknowledged them, so Legoshi hasn’t either. The wolf has learned that people tend to do strange things when upset, and it’s best to just ignore them until they say something about it.

Finally, both him and Riz manage to get their trays and make their ways to an empty table, both sitting on the same side. Legoshi picks at his food unenthusiastically while they wait for Tem to show up. Even if he wasn’t so nervous, the toothache makes it difficult to chew comfortably.

“Are you okay?” Riz asks, looking at the wolf strangely. “You keep doing that thing with your claws.”

“Huh? I’m just nervous, sorry.” Legoshi stops tapping his claws together, but one leg quickly starts to bounce in its place. He brings one hand up to the side of his muzzle, massaging the aching gums.

“Why are you nervous?” Riz asks, looking back down at his tray. “I’m the one that hurt Tem.”

Legoshi stops and takes a proper look at the bear. Although he isn’t tapping his feet or grimacing, Legoshi can tell that Riz is uncomfortable. His fists clench slightly on the tabletop, and his scent has changed markedly. The rising smell of sweat is beginning to cut through the bear’s deodorant, and Legoshi cautiously raises a hand to pat the larger carnivore on the shoulder. Before he can say something, however, another tray is set on the other side of the table, and a familiar alpaca sits down in front of them.

“Hi guys,” Tem says with a smile, still friendly, but more restrained than usual. “Thanks for meeting me, although I’m surprised you’d want to meet here, Riz. Wouldn’t you want to talk more privately?”

Riz shrugs Legoshi’s hand off his shoulder and shakes his head slightly. “No. This is better. I don’t want people thinking I’m trying to isolate you right after attacking you.”

Legoshi sees Tem’s face fall slightly, and the alpaca reaches out a hand to Riz’s, but the bear retracts his hand quickly. A moment of awkward silence passes between the trio, and Legoshi coughs slightly to draw attention away from the gesture. “I don’t think Tem blames you, Riz,” he says, looking at the alpaca for confirmation.

“He should,” Riz replies bluntly.

“Why?” Tem asks. “I was about to do something you didn’t want me to do. It’s understandable that you grabbed me.”

Riz looks at Tem with hurt in his eyes. “I would never mean to hurt you just because of something like that!” He says, aghast at the implication.

“Shit, that’s not what I meant! I worded it badly,” the alpaca says quickly, waving his hands. “I mean that I get why you grabbed me, and I know that it was an accident that you cut me with your claws. You said sorry, and I said it’s okay, so why can’t we go back to how it was?”

“Because I’m dangerous to be around!” Riz says, stopping himself from raising his voice. Legoshi winces at the repeating of his own words, but it’s not like he doesn’t believe it. “I can’t just let it go that easily, because then, what if I’m less careful in the future and it’s worse. What if I pull your arm off?” The last words are half-choked out, and Legoshi can smell the fear rising off of the larger carnivore. On instinct, the wolf puts a hand on Riz’s back and begins to rub slow circles between his shoulders, repeating what Jack does to help calm him down.

“Tem, you have to understand, it can be dan–” Legoshi begins, but snaps his mouth shut when the alpaca slams his hands on the table and stands in his seat.

“I do understand!” Tem says hotly, face beginning to turn red with high emotion. “You two keep saying that you’re dangerous to be around and how I should stay away, but how do you think that makes me feel?! It feels like you’re talking down to me! I’m not stupid, you know!”

“That’s not what I me–” Riz begins, his cloak of self-loathing being blasted by the whirlwind of Tem’s words, before he is quickly interrupted as well.

“I know more carnivores than just you two, you know,” Tem continues. “Half of drama club is made of carnivores, but you don’t see me eating meals with Bill, do you? Why do you think that is?”

Legoshi shares a look with Riz, both not quite sure when the tirade is about to start again. The conversation is beginning to attract some odd glances and giggles from people at nearby tables, obviously amused by the sight of an alpaca letting loose on two carnivores twice his size.

“Well?!” Tem demands.

Legoshi opens his mouth to reply, but Tem doesn’t even let the first syllable come out before barrelling on.

“BECAUSE HE’S AN ASSHOLE!” Both carnivores lean back slightly at the force of the sentence, not wanting to speak for fear of Tem reaching over the table and incinerating them with his words. “He’s a total asshole, and I just know that he wouldn’t be careful at all, or even change how he acts if it was him who hurt me! But you both tried to help, you wanted to help, and I could see that!” To Legoshi’s surprise and mild horror, tears begin to form at the corners of Tem’s eyes. “You two are the only people I know who want to be friends with me just because you like being around me and nothing else! So many herbivores try to be friends with me without even getting to know me, but with you two, I can just be myself. I like having quiet moments where we just read or sit with each other, and I am not going to lose that just because the two of you are being fucking stupid and hating yourselves.”

Tem stands with a few tears on his cheeks and panting, fully red in the face at the end of his speech. It takes a long moment for Legoshi and Riz to stir, but the wolf eventually pulls out a packet of tissues from his pocket and offers them to Tem. The alpaca takes them hesitantly, the reality of what he just did catching up to him.

“Why do you always have tissues?” Riz asks, breaking the tension with a nervous chuckle.

Legoshi shrugs. “I used to get a lot of nosebleeds,” he says as Tem wipes his face with one of them.

“Can we just have food now?” Tem asks, sitting back down and shoving damp tissues into his pockets. “I’m starving.”

“You were the one who shouted at us,” Legoshi points out, smiling slightly as he pulls his tray of food to himself. The smell of fresh sweat has stopped pouring from Riz’s body, and he removes his hand from the bear’s back.

“Tem?” Riz asks quietly, settling slowly back into his seat, but still not looking at the alpaca.

“Yeah Riz?”

“What if one of us does hurt you?” He asks. “I know you said you just wanted to have lunch, but it’s important,” he continues firmly, pushing past the frustrated noise Tem makes. “It’s a real possibility that something happens like that, even by accident.”

“Well you know what, as long as it’s an accident, I’ll forgive you,” Tem huffs. “Now eat your weird bean steak.”

Legoshi’s mouth quirks into a smile as he laughs slightly at the interaction. ‘ Maybe hanging out like this won’t be too bad, ’ he thinks to himself. ‘ Different, sure. But not necessarily bad. ’ His tails begins to wag as he eats his lunch.

Chapter Text

One day later

The day before the body is found

~~ Legoshi ~~

Legoshi walks back to his dorm after dinner with his tail wagging and back slightly straighter than usual as he thinks about the previous conversation he had with Tema and Riz. The rest of lunch had been a little awkward, but Tem’s bubbly nature managed to cut through it and prompt the others into conversation. When planning their next meetup, Tem caught sight of the picture of Kabu, Legoshi’s pet beetle, that he set to his background image. Instead of being grossed or creeped out, the alpaca asked him about it enthusiastically, and he ended up talking about his interest. After a minute, Riz even asked him if he could identify a spider he found in his dorm. Legoshi’s tail begins to wag harder as he thinks about the interaction, and his ears flick back and forth in a happy dance on his head.

“Hey there, Legoshi!” Jack’s voice comes from behind the wolf, and a smile spreads across Legoshi’s face as he drops back to walk beside his best friend. “You’re doing your happy little dance~” the labrador adds in a sing-song voice. “I guess it went well then?”

Legoshi’s smile is replaced momentarily with a look of confusion. “My happy dance?” He asks.

“You know! Your tail wags really fast and your ears do that twitching thing!” Jack replies cheerfully. “It’s how I can tell you’re happy about something.”

Legoshi stops walking and instinctively grabs his ears with his hands at the comment, too used to having his ‘twitches’ pointed out as something to make fun of. “Sorry,” he says, looking away.

“Wait no! Don’t stop doing it!” Jack says with a look of worry, pulling one of Legoshi’s hands down from the top of his head. “It’s not a bad thing! I like it!”

Legoshi looks at Jack suspiciously, hesitantly lowering his arms. “Really? You don’t think it’s weird?” He asks. Even though the canines have grown up together, there are still many things that Legoshi feels insecure about. Those insecurities have only grown stronger since starting highschool, especially as the bullies have only become bigger and bolder as they’ve gotten older.

“I’ve never thought it was weird,” Jack answers seriously, taking one of Legoshi’s hands in both of his. “It’s just you, and as my best friend, I happen to like you.”

“Okay,” Legoshi says, slowly starting to walk in the direction of the dorm again. “It did go well, yeah. Tem still wants to be friends with us– oh! Riz asked me to look at a spider he saw! It was a huntsman and it was really big! I think it’s even a female with eggs!” His voice picks up in speed and enthusiasm as he speaks. He notices his ears flicking once more and forces himself not to stop it, feeling a flush of relief.

“Sounds really scary!” Jack says with a shiver. “I know you love bugs, but the spiders are just too creepy for me.”

“I think it’s because their heads are lower than their legs,” Legoshi says solemnly. “Our heads are above our shoulders, but spider’s legs kind of curve above their eyes, and that looks unnatural to most people.”

“Do you think we wouldn’t think they were creepy if our heads were in our chests?” Jack giggles.

“Hmm, maybe,” Legoshi hums thoughtfully. The two canines walk in comfortable silence as they ponder the question until they get to their dorm and Jack stops outside the door. ‘ He’s always so upbeat, I’m glad Jack’s my friend. I don’t think I could have made it this far without him, ’ he thinks to himself.

“Legoshi?” Jack asks, cutting through his thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Do you wanna maybe let go of my hand?”

Legoshi’s eyes widen with shock and embarrassment as he quickly pulls his hand back from the labrador’s, not having realised that he had been holding Jack’s hand since they started walking again. “Sorry! You grabbed my hand first, and I guess I just forgot,” he mumbles.

“It’s okay, Lego,” Jack laughs. “I know you didn’t mean to, and it seemed like it helped chill you out, so I don’t mind.”

Legoshi doesn’t reply as they enter the dorm, heading instead to his bed and closing the curtains to change out of his uniform. The sound of his roommates starting up Voss’s console filter through the curtain, and he sighs to himself. The rest of his dorm have become his closest, and until recently, only friends, since starting at Cherryton, but their rowdiness in the evenings can sometimes be difficult to cope with. ‘ I don’t know why it’s so hard to keep up with their energy, ’ he thinks to himself as he pulls off his day clothes and folds them carefully. ‘ I’m so bad at being a wolf, can’t even socialise properly with other canines. ’

“Hey Legoshi!” Collot shouts over the din of a racing game and Voss’s constant litany of insults. “Get your ass in here, we need a fourth player for next round!”

The wolf tenses his hands at the noise and sighs under his breath. He had planned on staying undressed in his bunk for a while to get some respite from the feeling of cloth against his fur, but he can tell that the sheepdog is going to be persistent. “Sure, let me just get changed and tell me when you’re getting ready for the next race!”

“Dude, why do you get naked so much?” Voss asks.

“I’m not naked!” Legoshi lies. “I just don’t want to take up the bathroom while I change!”

“Whatever man, we all remember Durham’s wrestling incident, just saying!” The fennec teases, referring to an embarrassing moment in which the coyote opened Legoshi’s curtains unexpectedly to challenge him, only to accidentally reveal Legoshi’s naked body to the rest of the dorm.

“Bro, shut up,” Durham grumbles.

Legoshi doesn’t reply, rolling his eyes in the darkness of his bunk. It took a long time for the wolf to convince his roommates that he wasn’t doing anything sexual behind his curtain while they were hanging out, and he no longer sleeps naked because of it. Eventually, Collot calls for him again, and Legoshi pulls his evening clothes on, a baggy pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, before exiting back into the room. He shivers as he sits down between the sheepdog and Durham, feeling inexplicably cold. His tooth aches again, and Legoshi tries to block out his physical sensations as the race begins.

Despite not always participating in the group game nights, Legoshi isn’t terrible at the actual games themselves. His preference for games focused around exploration and alien ecosystems, what Voss would call ‘not real games’, doesn’t preclude him from even giving the fennec a run for his money. As Legoshi gains position in the race, the banter between Voss and the others begins to quieten down, an air of concentration settling over the group of canines. Legoshi’s toothache waves its hands to get his brain’s attention, but he pushes it away with practised skill, putting all of his focus into knocking Voss down a peg.

The last lap of the race begins, and everyone leans closer to the television, silence reigning over them. Legoshi vaguely recognises the sound of Miguno and Jack whispering to each other, but ignores them too. His tooth is really hurting now, and a strange tang creeps over his tongue as he drifts and swerves with pinpoint precision. The tension in the air gets thicker and thicker as the race nears its end, Collot and Durham both having lost interest in their own places and focusing on the race for first between Voss and Legoshi. Hearing the fennec swear under his breath, Legoshi sees an opening and inhales sharply as he capitalises on it. When he passes over the finish line a fraction of a second in first place, the whole room explodes with noise, and a rush of adrenaline runs through every member of the dorm.

Voss swears loudly and Collot claps Legoshi on the shoulder as he laughs in surprise, Miguno and Jack cheering indiscriminately from the sidelines. In his rush to get up and use the bathroom, Durham’s elbow collides with the side of Legoshi’s face and causes pain to blossom across his muzzle.

“Shit! Fuck! Sorry Legoshi! I really needed to piss and I just didn’t think about it!” The coyote apologises profusely as Legoshi groans. Durham’s worry increases as the wolf falls to all fours and coughs as if he’s choking. “I’m sorry! Oh fuck!” He repeats.

“Durham, just go piss and give him some space!” Jack orders loudly as he quickly kneels beside Legoshi and pats his back heavily.

Tears brim in Legoshi’s eyes as he coughs, the pain in his face becoming excruciating as his already sore gums scream at him. ‘ Something’s stuck in my throat, but what is it?! ’ He thinks to himself, panic rising further as bloody drool falls onto the floor in front of him. ‘ Oh god, am I going to die? I feel like I’m going to puke, don’t puke on the carpet Legoshi! You can’t afford to replace it! ’

“Stand back, Jack,” Collot orders, pushing the labrador away gently but firmly and positioning himself behind Legoshi. He feels the sheepdog’s hands pull him into a sitting position and brace under his ribs. “Sorry if I break your ribs, buddy,” Collot says in a matter of fact voice, and squeezes suddenly.

Legoshi feels his lungs and stomach compress violently once, fights back the urge to throw up once more, and coughs one final time, expelling three bloody objects from his throat. They make small ‘dink’ noises as they hit the television screen and add small red spatters to the scene of Legoshi’s racer posing with a cup. Legoshi scrambles away from the others to the bin beside the console and finally vomits, adding a foul sour stench to the smell of blood that snakes through the room. He feels a hand go to pat him on the back, but he flinches away reflexively, still breathing heavily and letting blood drip into the bin from his mouth. With a final caff, Legoshi expels a fourth object from his throat, and sits back heavily against the bunk behind him.

Durham returns from the bathroom with a wad of toilet paper in his hands and runs over to the wolf, pressing it into his hands. The only sound in the room is the end screen of the abandoned racing game, and Jack eventually fumbles with the remote to mute the game, bringing blessed quiet to the room.

“Ow,” Legoshi says to no-one in particular.

“Are you okay?” Voss asks, the rest of the room too stunned to say anything. “Well, obviously not, but do you want me to go get the nurse? Or some painkillers or something?”

Despite himself, Legoshi smiles at the fennec’s blunt affect. Even though he might not be his favourite person, it’s times like this that reminds the wolf that the dorm members do all care about each other, no matter how much they might get each others’ hackles up.

“I think I’m okay,” Legoshi says, giving a thumbs up as he presses the toilet paper to his injured mouth.

“THAT’S BULLSHIT,” Jack shouts, surprising everyone with his use of the expletive. “You just vomited blood Legoshi! You need to go to the infirmary right now !”

“I’ll go, it’s okay Jack, my face was hurting today anyway, it’s not that much more pain,” Legoshi says, completely failing to convince the room.

“Sweet Rex in heaven, Durham,” Miguno’s voice pipes up with surprise dripping from his words, holding up the three objects that hit the television in a piece of tissue paper. “You fucking knocked his Rexdamn teeth out!”

All eyes turn first to the bloody fangs in the hyena’s hand, then to the vomit in the bin, then to Legoshi, and then they explode with activity. Despite repeating how fine he is, the entire dorm jumps into action to get Legoshi to the school nurse. Miguno carefully folds the teeth in the tissue while Jack gets more tissues to replace the toilet paper currently being used by Legoshi. Voss bullies Durham into picking the fourth tooth out of the sick and disposing of the bin bag before clambering onto Collot’s shoulder. The sheepdog helps Legoshi to his feet and catches him as he loses his balance. When Legoshi fails to walk in a straight line and almost collapses against the wall, Collot scoops him up bodily and carries him bridal style quickly down the hallway with Jack running to keep up with the larger canine.

“You ‘on’ have ‘o ‘arry ‘e. I’ ‘ine,” Legoshi mumbles through the wad of bloody tissue in his mouth. ‘ Oh Rex, the world is spinning, why is it spinning, ’ he thinks to himself. The pain has reduced back to the dull ache of before, but an awful dizziness has replaced it, making him close his eyes to stop himself feeling sick again. As he peaks out of one eye, Legoshi can see various dorm doors opening and other carnivores poking their heads out at the sound of Collot’s heavy footfalls and the smell of blood.

A minute later, they reach the infirmary, and the on-duty nurse, a highland cow, almost drops her cup of green tea in surprise as Collot storms in, the door having been saved from being kicked in by Jack hurriedly opening it in the usual manner. 

“He needs to be looked at,” the sheepdog demands, gesturing with Legoshi in his arms, who waves slightly at the nurse before squeezing his eyes shut again with a groan.

“Well put him down then, boy! Over here in the big bed, I cannae look at him all bundled in your arms like that,” the nurse orders. As she stands and towers over the already tall sheepdog, Collot’s bristling fur relaxes in a show of submission, and he quickly carries out the command. Legoshi feels himself being laid on a surprisingly comfortable mattress, but he doesn’t open his eyes. “What’s the problem, then?” The nurse asks from his side, and Legoshi can feel the familiar hand of Jack slip into his for comfort.

“We were playing some video games, and our roommate got carried away and accidentally elbowed him in the face,” Voss explains in an even tone of voice. “Four teeth got knocked out and he vomited blood, but I think that was just from the teeth coming out. Also he couldn’t walk straight, so Collot carried him.” The fennec climbs down from the sheepdog’s shoulder and onto the side of the bed as he speaks, eventually standing at Legoshi’s shoulder. Despite being the smallest, Voss seems to be the least intimidated by the nurse’s stature.

“Must have been quite enthusiastic to knock four teeth out,” the nurse says as she pulls supplies from a drawer, disbelief tinging her voice. “What’s your name, lad?” She asks Legoshi, but Voss answers for him before he can mumble out any words. “Can you sit up?”

The wolf nods hesitantly and pulls himself into a sitting position, trying not to feel like he’s swimming through the world. At the nurse’s instruction, and after she pulls on some gloves, he gingerly opens his mouth, sticky red tissues falling out of his jaw and onto his shirt. Behind the nurse, the door opens for a second time to admit the other two residents of room 701.

“I got them!” Miguno says triumphantly, holding a ziplock bag stuffed with tissues and the missing teeth.

“You can like, put them back in, right?” Durham asks, ears drooping guiltily.

“Maybe, maybe,” the nurse says. “I’d have a better chance if I had enough space, though.” At her words, all of the other animals other than Voss step back obediently. “Now, on a scale of one to ten, where zero is nothing and ten is the worst pain ever, how badly does it hurt?” She asks as she pulls out a small torch to see into Legoshi’s mouth. “You can use your hands if it hurts to talk.”

‘ The worst pain I’ve experienced, or the worst pain anyone can experience? ’ The wolf thinks to himself. He holds up five fingers hesitantly.

“That’s bullshit,” Voss says. “Legoshi has a crazy high pain tolerance, you should treat that like an eight.”

The nurse raises her eyebrows, but nods. As she looks closer into his mouth, Legoshi sees her hesitate. It’s only for a moment, but he can see her pupils dilate in this close quarter before she retracts her hands and he closes his mouth. “I’m going to test you for concussion, seeing as you’ve had quite a knock, and I’ll have to ask your roommates to leave so they can’t distract you.” The nurse’s voice is firm, but there’s an undercurrent to it that Legoshi can’t quite put his finger on. 

“No!” Jack protests, stepping back up to the bed.

“You can wait just outside the door, I need to talk about some private medical matters with Legoshi here,” the highland cow repeats, and eventually the 701 residents filter out, some more reluctantly than others. When they shut the door behind them, the nurse pulls the curtain around Legoshi’s bed closed and looks something up on a nearby computer terminal before pulling a seat closer so she can sit down in it.

“Am I in trouble?” Legoshi asks with trepidation, sitting further up in the bed defensively.

“Oh, dear me no,” the nurse replies kindly. “I’d just like to ask you a few questions about your background if that’s okay?”

Legoshi nods.

“I see on your records that your grandfather is your guardian, can you tell me about that?”

“My parents aren’t around,” he says awkwardly. “I was living with my grandpa until I came here.”

“And you’ve got good friends here? The fennec and the labrador seem to care about you a lot.”

Legoshi nods, even more suspiciously than before. “I grew up with Jack, he’s my best friend. Why are you asking?”

The nurse’s expression softens into one of almost motherly concern. “Well, to be blunt, I can see that you’re some form of hybrid, mixed with a reptile if I’m any judge, and there are lots of cases of students being bullied for being hybrids, no matter how much the school tries to stop it. Did another student hurt you in any way? Maybe even just a push that made you fall over?”

Legoshi shifts uncomfortably in his bed, suddenly wishing that he hadn’t been brought to the nurse at all. The mention of his hybrid nature makes a spike of anxiety go through him, and he begins to click his claws together. “No, it really was an accident,” he mumbles. “My teeth were hurting anyway, I think they might have been loose from a cavity or something.”

“Well, they were loose, but they don’t have any cavities. Here, let me show you something.” The nurse gets up and brings the terminal over to the side of his bed. With a few quick searches, she brings up two x-rays side by side. “This one is from a wolf, see how the teeth root quite deeply in the jaw? And this one is from a crocodile that’s about to shed its teeth. You can see that the top tooth’s root has started to get reabsorbed as the bottom one’s root grows and starts pushing up.” She pulls one of Legoshi’s teeth from the ziplock bag and shows how the root is almost completely gone. “Lots of reptiles replace their teeth a number of times over their lives, and they often lose their first proper pair near the end of puberty. Most hybrid changes like these happen in an animal’s twenties, but it seems like you’re an early bloomer. It’s probably why you’re so much taller than the average wolf.”

Legoshi sits stunned in the bed as he listens to the information. With everything being told to him, all he can think about is his mother, and that awful morning when he woke up to an ambulance in his home and his grandpa crying on the stairs while the police questioned him. Legoshi’s hands begin to shake, and he digs his nails into his palms, pushing them hard into the skin to stop them moving, stopping just short of gouging into his flesh. He looks up at the nurse when he feels a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

“You can stay here tonight if you want. It doesn’t look like you’re concussed, but your inner ear seems to have gotten knocked around, which might be related to any extra teeth growing in. I could tell your friends that you need to stay for observation, if you like.” The highland cow’s voice is soft, and the offer is tempting.

However, Legoshi shakes his head and looks back down at his clenched hands. “Am I going to get new teeth?” He asks.

“Yes, in fact I can already see them coming through, that’s what tipped me off. Do you have any family you can talk to about this? I know that sometimes families can be difficult about this kind of thing, but it’s important to know how to care for your body.”

“My grandpa,” Legoshi mumbles. ‘ The last time I talked to him I said it was his fault, I can’t crawl back to him now. He probably hates me. ’ Just the thought of calling his grandfather after all this time makes his stomach flip, and he feels like he might throw up again if he keeps doing so. “He’s a komodo dragon. I don’t really talk to him.”

“Can you try?” She asks. “If you can’t, I can try find you some resources for komodo dental care.”

“That would be nice. Thank you for not being scared,” Legoshi says pitifully, and he feels the hand on his shoulder squeeze him briefly.

“‘Ain’t nothing to be afeared of just because you’re a hybrid. My nephew is one, and he’s a young strapping lad going into construction with his pa.”

The rising dread in Legoshi’s heart mixes with the honey balm of the nurse’s kind words and bubbles together. As the reaction overflows, the wolf finds himself beginning to cry in earnest, and he lets himself be pulled into a warm embrace, totally enclosed by the highland cow’s broad arms. He sobs heavily a few times, thinking about his own mother and the number of hugs he’s missed out on since she died. Eventually, when he subsides, the nurse wordlessly ends the hug and gives him a box of tissues to wipe his fur and blow his nose with.

“What’s your name?” He asks hoarsely.

“Nurse Barclay, but you can call me Mrs. Barclay if you like when it’s just us,” she replies. “Now, do you have someone you can talk to tonight about this? Or at least to reach out to?”

Legoshi thinks to himself for a moment, and eventually nods. “Yeah, I think so.”

“That’s good. Now you can be on your way if you like.”

As the nurse pulls away, to begin cleaning up, he reaches out and grabs the sleeve of her shirt awkwardly. “What do I tell my roommates?” He asks, pleading in his eyes. “I don’t want to tell them about being a hybrid.”

Mrs. Barclay sighs. “Normally I’d advocate honesty, especially since they clearly care for you with how they barged in here, but if you really don’t want to, you can say that have an extra set of teeth. It does happen, it’s called hyperdontia if you want to sound official. I’d say those teeth wouldn’t have been knocked out if the extra pair hadn’t been coming through already.”

Legoshi picks up the bag of his teeth and gets up off the bed while the nurse begins entering his notes into the terminal. “Can you not put the hybrid stuff on my file?” He asks.

“I’m afraid I have to,” the highland cow informs him. “But dinnae worry, I’m the only one who reads them regularly, as I’m the head nurse. I really recommend you getting a dental x-ray at some point to know exactly what you’re looking at, but that doesn't have to be done right now.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” Legoshi mumbles as he walks out of the infirmary, feeling much less dizzy now that he’s had time to sit down. When he exits the room, he’s surprised to see not just his roommates waiting for him, but also the sharp-beaked figure of Aoba from drama club. “Hey guys,” he says.”

Almost immediately, the wolf is swarmed by his roommates, all asking if he’s okay and if they managed to put his teeth back in. Legoshi freezes at the sudden amount of noise, but he can’t seem to get his mouth to work. As he digs his claws into his palms once more, he catches the eye of Aoba, who immediately picks up on his predicament.

“I think Legoshi needs some space,” the eagle says firmly from behind the pack, his voice managing to get the group to pull back, tails and ears hanging low with a little shame.

“I’m fine I think,” Legoshi says once he has some breathing room. “The teeth were coming loose because I have extra ones coming through, the nurse said it was called hyperdontia, but I kind of want to just go back to the dorm.” His voice stays in its usually monotone as he explains, but he can tell that Jack can see right through him. The labrador has always been able to read Legoshi, no matter how hard he tries, and he knows that he’s holding back some very pointed questions.

“That’s good,” Aoba says before the 701 residents can let loose another barrage of questions. “I saw the commotion and came to check on you, but if you’re okay, then I’m heading back to the dorms.”

Legoshi nods, grateful to be given an out by the eagle, and follows him. ‘ I need to talk to someone tonight, like Mrs. Barclay said, but I don’t want to talk to Jack, ’ he thinks. ‘ He’ll freak out if he finds out about my teeth, I know it. But who else can I even reach out to? Tem will be asleep, and I don’t want to wake him up. ’ Racking his brain for options, Legoshi finally settles on one, even if it’s not his first thought. When the group finally gets back to the dorm, his roommates all turn in early after cleaning the rest of the blood off the ground and television, although both Miguno and Durham head out for a walk to get the coyote’s nerves out before heading to sleep. In his bunk, Legoshi pulls out his phone and begins to type.

~~ Riz ~~

Amber honey flows from a bottle like liquid sunlight, the viscous stuff so precious to Riz that it might as well be made of gold. It’s the only thing that reliably quells his migraines, especially on school nights when he can’t risk getting high and feeling hungover the next day. The bear squeezes the bottle into his mouth, savouring the sweet sensation of pain relief, even if only for a moment. ‘ I thought the migraines were getting better, but they’re not going away. I wish I didn’t have to take this fucking medication, ’ he thinks to himself, looking at his haggard and warped reflection in the plastic honey bottle. ‘ It’s probably because Legoshi’s been pushing in on hanging out with Tem. ’ The thoughts are bitter and spiteful, but after today, he can’t help but second guess himself. The feeling of Legoshi’s large hand on his back as the wolf tried to comfort him plays back in his mind. ‘ Noone’s ever done that since I turned fourteen, but he just went for it. It wasn’t bad though, did I actually like it? What a weird guy. ’

Riz looks down as his phone buzzes in his hand. “Speak of the devil,” he mutters under his breath.

Riz sighs. 'That's a no, then.'

Riz rolls his eyes at the text and pulls on a jacket. Checking the time on his phone, he sees that it’s still only nine in the evening and furrows his eyebrows. ‘ His roommates are already sleeping? What the hell happened, did they hotbox their dorm or something? ’ Shaking his head, Riz slips on some shoes and opens the door, gulping down another mouthful of honey as he begins wandering to the top of the dorm tower. When he finally opens the door onto the rooftop, he sees a few other carnivores hanging out for the hour before curfew, some smoking cigarettes, others just talking and playing music on a bluetooth speaker. A few wave to Riz as he pulls his jacket around himself against the chill, and he gives a wave back before looking for Legoshi. He quickly sees the wolf sitting against a shed wall by himself, looking down at something in his hands, and any lingering anger at him leaves Riz’s mind at the sight.

Legoshi’s fur, usually relatively kempt, is messy as all hell, and Riz can see a large welt on the side of his muzzle distorting the shape of his face. The wind whips the wolf’s ears and tail around, and Riz realises that the other carnivore is only clothed in a t-shirt and sweatpants. Legoshi usually slouches, but now he is practically curled into a ball over his knees. When he looks up, he gives a small wave, but doesn’t move other than that. 

“Hey there,” Riz says awkwardly as he comes near, trying to work out what’s in the wolf’s hand, but the fingers close over them before he gets a chance. “What did you want to talk about? And aren’t you cold?”

Legoshi shrugs, looking down at the ground again. “Probably.”

Riz sighs, taking off his jacket and putting it around the wolf’s shoulders before sitting down next to him. “Something’s wrong, so tell me,” he says, trying to soften his tone when talking to the clearly troubled wolf, but still managing to come out as blunt and disaffected. ‘ Nice one, Riz. Really comforting. ’

“I’m a hybrid.” The words are so quiet, they almost get whipped away by the wind before Riz’s ears pick them up. Even as he speaks, Legoshi curls further in on himself, and Riz fights the urge to pull him closer. There’s definitely more to it than just that fact, and the bear suddenly feels like he’s tiptoeing through scattered eggshells.

“Okay, is that bad?” Riz asks hesitantly. ‘ I can’t just push him away, but why isn’t he talking to his friends about this? ’ He wonders internally.

“I don’t think so, I don’t want it to be, but lots of people think it is,” Legoshi mumbles, voice mixed with equal parts bitterness and grief. “It’s just what I am.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s bad,” Riz volunteers. “It makes sense, since you’re less social than other wolves, but I’ve always just thought you were a quiet wolf. I work in the sound box, so it’s not like I don’t understand wanting to get away from the rest of the club, especially Bill and Louis.”

Legoshi turns to look at Riz suspiciously. “You don’t think it’s weird? That I’m weird?”

“Well, I did, but I guess that was unfair.” Riz scratches the back of his head with one hand. “Sorry if I’ve made you feel weird.”

“That’s okay. It’s not new.”

Riz falls silent once more, waiting for Legoshi to continue. Instead of the constant movement that the bear usually associates with canines, Legoshi stays almost completely still. ‘ Kind of like a reptile, ’ Riz thinks, starting to re-evaluate his interactions with the club’s only lighting technician. The wind is joined by a small clicking sound, and Riz looks down to see Legoshi’s claws tapping together. ‘ I guess that means he’s anxious? ’

“I’ve started changing,” Legoshi says. “My body, I mean. I’ve started getting more komodo mutations other than my height and eyes. I lost a few teeth this evening and it was this whole big thing in my dorm. I told them that I just have this thing where you have extra sets of teeth, which isn’t wrong I guess, but it’s not the whole story. My grandpa is a komodo dragon and my mother died when I was young. We’ve always been discriminated against because I’m a hybrid, and because grandpa’s venomous, and I’m really scared about that happening to me too.” He continues in his usual monotone, but Riz can see the clicking speed up in pace and intensity. “I know Jack was really worried about me when my mother died, and I just couldn’t deal with him freaking out over me again tonight, so I decided to ask you.” Soon, the wolf is beginning to gouge his free hand with his claws.

Without thinking, Riz reaches close and grabs Legoshi’s hand, putting a few of his fingers into the wolf’s palm to block his claws. “You can squeeze my hand, but don’t hurt yourself,” Riz says gently, shuffling closer so their shoulders touch. 

Legoshi opens and closes his mouth a few times before gripping Riz’s hand so hard he has to fight not to swear in pain. ‘ He’s not trying to hurt me, but fucking hell! He’s way stronger than I thought he would be! ’ Riz chews the inside of his cheek while he forces a smile. “See? Much better.”

They stay like that for half a minute, and Riz is about to tap out just before the pressure abates and he retrieves his injured hand. Taking this as his cue, he takes a deep breath before speaking. “People might discriminate, it’s true,” Riz says in a reasonable tone of voice. “But lots of other people won’t. I won’t, Tem won’t, and I’d be really surprised if your roommates would.” The wind pulls the heat from his skin despite his fur, and he can see a few of the other carnivore students packing up and heading indoors. With the lack of other animals with good hearing around, Riz decides to take the plunge. “It’s similar with bears, you know.”

Legoshi turns to look at Riz in confusion, but says nothing.

“If we’re over two metres tall, we have to take medication that suppresses our strength. I looked up how they work once, and the chemical literally breaks down the proteins in our muscles. Every bear gets different side effects from them, but they’re all shit. I get these splitting migraines, and the only thing that helps is guzzling honey like a fucking cartoon character.” Riz’s voice gets lower and more of a growl as he continues, anger and grief bubbling up in his chest. “Because we’re so big and strong, lots of people are afraid of us, and it can be really hard to get housing since basically nothing is built for our size. Or if it is, it’s built for herbivores, and it’s made of really flimsy material that gets torn up by our claws.” Riz stops speaking in surprise as he feels Legoshi’s hand slip into his own without warning.

“You can squeeze my hand, if you want,” the wolf says. “Just don’t hurt yourself.”

With his own words said back to him, Riz feels like the bottom of his stomach has fallen out. All the times he’s wanted to do something, anything to stop the pain other than drinking honey come flooding up from the sticky swamp of his darker moments. To his surprise, a lump begins to form in his throat before he tries to speak again. “It feels like I can’t be myself because of the pain, you know? The pills have just robbed me of years of my life. So I get it, I guess,” he trails off.

“Do you have anyone else you talk to about this?” Legoshi asks.

“Just my family, and Tem. Even Tem doesn’t know the real me, though. The migraines have gotten better after I talked to him about it, but I want so badly to stop taking them,” Riz says. “How can I be a real friend to him if I can’t even be myself?”

Legoshi holds Riz’s hand tighter and nods. “I think you just be honest, right? I don’t think you should stop taking them all in one go, you don’t know what the withdrawal will be like. I tried doing that from my medication and I was puking for days, so I had to go back on it and then come off it slowly.”

“I guess,” Riz agrees begrudgingly. “Be honest, huh? Sounds like you should listen to your own advice.”

Legoshi frowns and looks down. “Fuck. You’re right.”

“Whoa! Legoshi the quiet lighting tech just dropped an F-bomb!” Riz laughs, the lump in his throat starting to go down as he chuckles.

“Shut up,” Legoshi says, pulling his hand away and shoving the bear’s shoulder.

“Hey, can I see the teeth that fell out?” Riz asks on impulse, only wincing after he hears the words come out of his mouth. “I mean, ah shit, nevermind.”

Legoshi smiles and opens his clenched hand to reveal four sharp teeth, cleaned of the blood that they were recently covered in. Riz cautiously reaches over and picks one up, marvelling at the unique structure. “Wow, they’re really impressive!”

“You can have them, if you want.”

“What?”

“You can have them,” Legoshi repeats, just as seriously as before. “Think of it like an apology for shouting at you before, and for saying that you shouldn’t be friends with Tem. And I think I want to be friends with you.”

Riz blinks a few times with his mouth open. ‘ Yeah. Really, really weird. ’ However, he closes his hand over the tooth on an impulse, the sharp tip pressing into his palm. “Sure, I’d like to be friends with you too. Now let’s get out inside.”

The pair only talk a little bit more as they wander down the long staircase, eventually parting ways and making their own ways to their dorms. Riz throws the tooth in the air and catches as he walks a few times, chuckling at the strange gift. As he goes through the motions of getting ready for bed, he reaches for the box of muscle suppressants, and hesitates. He had planned on quitting them tonight, Tem’s smile floating in his mind, but the Legoshi’s stern expression jostles it for the front row. Slowly, hands shaking, Riz pulls a tablet out of its blister packet and holds the hated poison in his palm where it nestles beside the tooth. On reflex, the bear goes to drink more honey in preparation for his dose, but finds that his migraine has gone away in the time he took to talk to Legoshi. 

His phone buzzes once more in his hand.

“Be honest,” Riz says to his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Well, this is me trying to be honest, Legoshi.”

The next day, the body is found.

Chapter Text

The day the body is discovered

~~ Legoshi ~~

Legoshi wakes up shivering once more, standing on end under his sheets in an effort to trap as much warmth as possible. His face aches, but not as badly as the night before, and he smacks his lips experimentally. Poking his tongue into the gap left by the teeth, he can feel the new teeth pushing through and into their slots. They’re already as long as the previous teeth, and Legoshi is surprised they don’t click against his top row when he shuts his mouth. ‘Maybe the rest of my jaw is changing shape too? I’ll probably have to eat so much more food to fuel my body. Do I have to worry about metabolic bone disease now? How much calcium am I going to need to keep making new teeth? ’ 

While he ponders the questions, Legoshi pulls back his curtain and greets his roommates as they get ready. The room is surprisingly warm as he gets out of bed, and the heat helps to energise him for the morning.

“Good morning!” Jack says as he retrieves his uniform from their communal closet.

“Morning,” Legoshi says, rubbing sleep from his eyes and yawning. “Did you turn the heater on?”

“Yep! It was Durham’s idea though, I think he still feels bad for smacking you in the face. Him and Miguno headed out earlier, but you should talk to him when you get a chance.”

“Mm,” Legoshi hums in agreement. As he gets ready and puts his uniform on, he sees his slouching figure in the mirror, and for the first time in a while, doesn’t like what he sees. Quietly, the wolf straightens his back with a little effort and stands taller. When he finally stands straight, a smile plays across his bruised muzzle at the reflection.

“Wow.” Legoshi turns to see Jack and Collot watching him with Voss on the his customary seat at the sheepdog’s shoulder. All three of them look at him with a collective expression of surprise, although Jack’s also glimmers with admiration.

“For a guy who had his teeth knocked out last night, you look really fucking good,” Collot jokes, making Legoshi blush at the compliment.

As the pack of canines head out of the dorm and on their way to classes, Legoshi walks with a little more confidence, even joining in the conversation unprompted instead of waiting to be asked a question. When they make their ways further down the carnivore dorm tower, however, Legoshi can tell something is wrong. The usual hustle and laughter of students getting to breakfast and talking about homework, the lower levels are filled with angry mutters and hushed murmurs. The other canines pick up on it soon after him, and Collot’s banter with Jack falls silent. More and more carnivores cluster in the hallways and stairwells, and after a minute, the group is pushing between students to get through. Legoshi wordlessly grabs Jack’s hand so they won’t get separated.

When they get near the bottom of the stairs, the crowds begin to thin, and Legoshi spies Miguno and Durham near the entrance to the dorm and looking nervous. Soon, the pair sees the group and they rush to join the rest of the pack.

“What’s wrong, Miguno?” Legoshi asks, scalp tingling with tension.

The hyena’s eyes dart around worriedly before leaning closer and lowing his voice to a hushed whisper so the other students can’t hear. “A herbivore’s been devoured. Apparently it was an alpaca. Durham and I were in the cafeteria when the cops showed up, and we got told to get back to the dorm.”

Legoshi freezes, mouth slightly open, and stares at the hyena while the words of his narrative wash over the stunned group. Slowly, as the dread starts to root itself into his brain, a high pitched ringing sound starts in his ears that gets louder with each second. The louder it gets, the less Legoshi can hear of the rest of the world, and the less he can focus on anything other than the terrible images running through his mind. ‘How did Tem die? Who killed him? Wait no, we don’t know it’s Tem, it could have been any other alpaca. But also, what other alpaca is popular enough and kind enough to have a close carnivore friend. Fuck, it’s definitely Tem, and all his friends are suspects.’ 

Without warning, Legoshi grabs Miguno’s shoulders and pulls him closer, towering over the smaller carnivore with fangs bared. “Did they find who did it?!” He growls, prompting a burst of nervous cackling from the hyena.

“N– no! The cops think they were either in the cafeteria or here!” Miguno stutters out in between involuntary cackling. 

Legoshi drops Miguno and looks around the bottom floor landing at their surrounding students wildly. ‘It could be any of them, any of these people could have been the devourer. But there are so many! Wait, I don’t have to smell every single one of them, I just need to see if I can pick up the scent of blood from the perpetrator from when they came back after killing Tem,’ he thinks to himself, ignoring the angry expressions of his roommates after treating Miguno so roughly. Closing his eyes, the wolf tries to dig as far as he possibly can into his primal sense to be able to make out the slightest scent amongst the milling carnivores. However, with the sweat, tears, and all the other small things that mix into the smell of fear, drowning everything out, it’s impossible to distinguish them. For some reason, Legoshi finds himself extending his tongue out of his mouth and bringing it back into his mouth. When he does, an explosion of scent rolls across his brain, a perfect snapshot brought back like the finest of oil paintings. He repeats this a few times more in order to get a better idea of what is around.

There are the overtones, yes, but under that is the smell of deodorant and perfumes. Under that still is the fresh soap from the night staff who mopped this floor. And then, on the lowest level, Legoshi can smell blood. It fills his mind with thoughts of Tem. It’s almost imperceptible, and he doubts many other canine would be able to pick it up. Even as he tries to pin down the direction of the trail, the scent assails his nostrils from very close nearby. As he turns around, Legoshi opens his eyes to look at the animals nearby, but a sudden of surge of people coming into the dorm ‘encouraged’ by the police immediately muddles everything. One animal he does see, towering over many of the others, walks through the doors with a harrowed expression. When Riz catches Legoshi’s eyes, the bear gives a half-wave before his eyes widen in alarm as he sees Legoshi striding towards him with a glare.

Legoshi can feel crackling rage flushing through his body as he approaches Riz, the tentative peace between them teetering on the edge of a cliff. He flexes his fingers, claws grazing the fabric of his pants and catching a few threads in preparation for tearing through fur and skin. Legoshi is dimly aware of something tugging on his shirt, but he ignores it. All of his senses narrow to focus on Riz in an effort to analyse every single part of him. 

‘Is the smell coming from him? Has his fur been messed up? Did he get sleep last night? ’ Questions roll through his head as he reaches Riz through the crowd and grabs his arm roughly. Legoshi pulls him into the bathroom and once again flicks out his tongue into the air to check for anyone else. After making sure they’re alone, he shoves Riz against the door of one of the cubicles and inhales his scent, searching for any trace of blood on the bear’s breath or body. Surprisingly, Riz does nothing to stop him, and his lack of response only serves to make his suspicious rage turn into indignance. ‘Why isn’t he reacting? ’ Legoshi thinks angrily. ‘Is he trying to hide his reaction? What the fuck happened!’

As he pushes closer into Riz and flicks his tongue out, Legoshi finds that tears begin to rise unbidden in his eyes. His throat hurts and his head feels full as his hands begin to shake, clawing desperately at the bear’s shirt and fur. As Legoshi begins to sob in earnest, his forehead falls onto Riz’s broad chest, tears seeping through the fabric and leaving damp patches. Dimly aware of his surroundings, Legoshi can feel the bear’s strong arms close around him in a steady embrace, only disturbed by the shaking of Riz’s own body as he begins to cry as well. ‘The one friend I’ve made outside of the pack since coming here and he’s fucking gone, he’s fucking dead.’ Images of Tem’s perfect wool stained red with gore and viscera assault his mind and make him sob even harder. Somewhere far away, someone is calling his name, but he can’t understand their words, nor does he care for them. The only thing important is his grief and unending sorrow.

“LEGOSHI,” Jack shouts in his ear, grabbing fistfulls of the wolf’s vest and shaking him in Riz’s arms. The force of the action makes Legoshi’s breath catch in his throat as the labrador hauls him from the pits of despair. Both him and Riz turn bleary eyes towards Jack, not having realised when he entered the bathroom, clutching each other like they’ll shatter if they let go. Jack brings his hands up to cup Legoshi’s cheeks and looks deep into his eyes. “It isn’t Tem!” He says, desperate to keep the wolf from dipping below the waves again and drowning. “Tem isn’t the alpaca who died! I heard it from another student! It’s okay!”

Legoshi stares at him wordlessly, unable to find any words as he struggles to process the emotional whiplash.

“What?” Riz asks dully, voice hoarse from holding back his sobs.

“The herbivore who got devoured isn’t Tem,” Jack repeats. “The body was found behind the storage warehouse, but it was a different student. I asked around and someone heard that all the alpaca students have been pulled from school for today, and that’s probably why you haven’t heard from Tem today. It might have been his roommate or friend, but he’s still alive.”

The two larger carnivores stare open mouthed at Jack for a few seconds, letting the words sink into their brains. Suddenly, Legoshi twists in Riz’s arms and pulls Jack close to his body, sandwiching the smaller canine between himself and the bear. Both him and Riz begin to cry again, but it’s tears of relief that flow now instead of sadness. They stand there with Jack’s feet half a metre off the ground for a good minute before things begin to subside.

“You’re crushing me here guys,” Jack says breathlessly, and the crush of bodies abates.

“It’s still bad that a student got devoured…” Legoshi says sadly. “...but I’m glad it isn’t Tem,” he adds eventually, wincing at how it sounds.

“Yeah,” Riz says.

After a few awkward seconds pass, the door to the bathroom opens to let in the tip of Durham’s muzzle. “Hey, guys? The police are letting us go. They say it’s too long since the devouring to be able to effectively sort through everyone.”

“Thanks Durham,” Legoshi replies. “We’ll head back soon.”

Riz finally retracts his arms from around Legosh, and he steps away from the bear quickly, a thick, awkward atmosphere blooming in the space between them. 

“Sorry for blaming you,” Legoshi says, looking at the floor. “I could smell the blood on someone close, and you walked in.”

“It’s okay,” Riz says with a shrug. “I also thought it might be you, but not after you had that reaction.”

Legoshi nods and sighs. “Well, I need to go apologise to Miguno, and then I guess we’ll see each other in Drama club.”

~~ Tem ~~

People walk back and forth down the bustling corridor of the police station where Tem and a few of his roommates sit. They’d been there for over an hour, although it’s difficult to nail down exactly how much time has passed. Every so often, a stern okapi detective comes and picks off one of the group for an interview before returning and moving onto the next one. They’d been given hot chocolates by a kindly assistant, of which very few of them had drunk. Tem looks dully at the paper cup in his hand, its contents long since gone cold, and tries to feel anything. His phone buzzes yet again, and he ignores it, yet again. It feels like he is stuck in a time loop, the same few things repeating over and over again with no real change.

One of his roommates gets taken for questioning, someone gets pulled past in handcuffs, the roommate returns, someone shouts in the next room, waiting, questioning, repeat.

“Tem? It’s time for your interview.”

The alpaca looks up, finding it hard to comprehend a change in the routine he’s settled into expecting, and matches eyes with the detective. He can see the rough exterior and the softening of the herbivore’s features, but Tem can also recognise a fellow actor when he sees one. He nods wordlessly and follows the detective into an interview room, still holding his cold cup of hot chocolate. When he sits down in one of the two chairs furnishing the barren room, Tem finally takes a sip of the beverage. It tastes like nothing.

“I’m going to ask you a few questions about your relationship to Duncan,” the detective says, pulling out a notebook and a pen form his pocket and sitting down. “Are you going to be okay with that?”

Tem nods.

“So, you were roommates with him, how long have you known each other?”

“Um, since he moved in last year. He was a pretty private guy, but I tried to make friends.” Tem’s voice is hesitant, as if he’s re-learning how to use his throat.

“Were you two close? I’ve heard from your other roommates that you’re quite popular.”

Tem shakes his head. “No, he never really opened up.”

“Did you know if he had any other friends?”

“I think he might have been friends with some people in the film club, but he mostly avoided people.”

“So not friends with any carnivores, then?”

Tem stiffens at the question. “I don’t think so. Is it bad to be friends with carnivores?”

The okapi’s eyes narrow slightly at Tem, but he shakes his head. “No, we just need to rule out any suspects. Do you know why he was out of your dorm last night past curfew? Was he meeting anyone?”

“No. He went for walks quite a lot. I thought that he was just going for one when he left.”

The detective frowns slightly and flicks back through his notebook a few pages. “Your other roommates didn’t see him leave, but you did. Do you know what time it was?”

“Yeah, I do, it was eleven fifty-seven.”

“That’s very specific,” the okapi notes. “How can you be so sure?”

“I was messaging someone. We were going to meet up that evening, but didn’t in the end, so I texted him instead.”

“You were going to meet up with someone that evening,” the detective repeats, pencil scratching as he writes down Tem’s words. “Who?”

‘Fuck, can’t say it was Riz, then he’ll be a suspect!’ Tem thinks suddenly, trying not to crush the paper cup in his hands. ‘I have to lie to a detective! It’s literally his job to figure out when people do that, oh Rex I’m so screwed.’ Tem forces a shrug. “Someone from class.”

The detective nods without looking up from his notebook, and continues writing for a few more moments. When he finishes, he sets the book and pencil on the table and fixes Tem with a searching look. “We have reason to believe that Duncan was dealing with some mental health issues, do you know about this?” He asks

“Yeah,” Tem admits, a sinking feeling replacing the rush of adrenaline gained from lying to the detective. “He got bullied because he was quiet and kinda nerdy. I tried to talk to him about it, but he wouldn’t open up. What are you saying happened? He killed himself by carnivore?”

The okapi’s lips tighten into a thin line. “It has been known to happen, herbivores offering themselves up to carnivores when they feel like there’s nothing left worth living for,” he says grimly before standing up and walking to open the door. “You’re the last person we needed to interview today, so you and your roommates can leave. We’ll send a car to drop you back at Cherryton if your family doesn’t live in the city.”

Tem gets up from the chair feeling a lot more alive than he did sitting down in it, and exits the room with a thank you that immediately falls on ears too distracted to care. When he returns to his roommates and tells them the news, a wave of relief passes over them, and several immediately pull out their phones to call or text their parents. Tem thinks about his own home, about going back and staying with his parents, and immediately rejects the idea. Back with them is the last place he wants to be right now.

In the end, he’s the only one who gets driven back to Cherryton, and he scrolls through his messages on the way in the back of the police car driven by a ram. There are short messages of support from acquaintances, longer messages from friends, and the occasional screed about how carnivores should be segregated entirely from herbivores that’s written with the assumption he’ll agree. Tem snorts derisively as he ignores those last messages, but still scrolls through looking for one person’s name in particular. Eventually, when he does find it, Tem’s heart goes through a complicated twist in his chest.

Tem stares at the message for a good long while, thinking of all the things he wants to say. His crush on the angora goat has been building steadily for a year, ever since she joined the drama club and he talked to her for the first time. She always has something nice to say, some kind word or funny joke, and the way she laughs always tugs on something in Tem’s heart. When Els smiles, it’s like some inner light shines through, and Tem can’t help but smile as well, even when he’s having a terrible time. However, despite all of this, and all the time he’s tried to get to know her, she’s never managed to see all the way through the bubbly mask Tem wears most of the time. Every time he decides he’s going to lower it, to show Els how he really feels, the good and the bad, he can’t make himself do it. The notification for her message made him feel hopeful that this dark fog could be lifted, but he can’t help but focus on what is missing from it. 

‘She didn’t say I could talk to her,’ he thinks dully. ‘Does she not want to talk to me? Does she even really like me? Who am I supposed to reach out to? ’

“Your stop, kid,” the officer driving Tem says, cutting the engine of the patrol car outside the gates of Cherryton. “Want me to come in with you?”

“What?” Tem asks, too stuck in his own head to understand the words properly.

“Do you want me to come in with you?” They repeat.

“No, that’s okay.” Tem puts his phone in his pocket, but doesn’t leave the car immediately. “Do you know who did this?” He asks without looking up.

The officer sighs. “We have some suspects, but nothing solid right now.”

“Was it a student?”

There’s a long silence, stretching out longer and longer as Tem refuses to leave the car. “Probably. There’s been some reports of someone suspicious skulking around the neighbourhood as well, but it’s likely to have been a student. My advice? Stay away from any carnivores, especially big carnivores,” they finally answer. “The body was– well. It wasn’t a small breed that did something like that.”

Tem opens the door and leaves without replying to the officer, gripping his phone hard in his hand and fighting back tears from his eyes. The alpaca walks swiftly through the gates and across the deserted grounds, his pace increasing quickly until he’s almost running. Tem dashes into a random building and starts climbing the stairs, going higher and higher until he finds a door to a roof. He doesn’t think as he runs, a madness swirling through body and making it lighter than air in the same way that terror gives one wings. ‘What are you fucking doing?!’ A small voice inside him screams. ‘Don’t run up to the fucking roof! Do you want to add a second body to campus or something?!’

Tem wrenches the door open, not knowing or understanding what he’s going to do next, and runs out onto the roof. In his rush, one of his feet catches on something heavy and ceramic, and he falls flat on his face on the dusty concrete. Cringing from the pain that radiates from his shin, Tem rolls over and picks himself up into a sitting position. “What was I thinking?” He groans to himself, looking through a film of tears at his injured leg. To his surprise, he is surrounded by flowers of all different colours and scents. 

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing breaking my flower pots! The club has to pay for those ourselves you know!” An angry voice says from his left, and Tem looks up to see a pure white dwarf rabbit standing over him with her hands on her hips. The alpaca looks back at his foot and sees that, yes, his shin came in contact with a small ceramic pot which has fallen over and broken into three pieces.

“Sorry,” Tem apologises with a sniff, and pulls himself to stand. “I can pay you back. The news today was a lot, haven’t been paying attention to where I’m going.”

At the mention of what happened, the smaller herbivore’s aggressive countenance immediately relaxes, and her expression melts into one of sympathy.  “Oh, that makes sense. It’s okay, they don’t cost that much anyway,” she says. “I’m Haru, by the way. Welcome to the gardening club, I guess.”

“I’m Tem.” He holds out a hand awkwardly, once again looking at the immaculately kept flowerbeds. 

“So why’d you come up here? I hope you weren’t thinking about doing something stupid?” Haru’s hard voice cuts through Tem’s thoughts once again, surprising him with her bluntness so much that he doesn’t have enough time to think about lying.

“I think I was,” he stutters, unable to stop himself. “But I don’t think I do anymore. I was just really upset about something.”

“Hmm, well you can stay here while I work, but then you have to leave when I do. I don’t want my beautiful garden getting dirtied by you killing yourself in front of my babies.”

Not knowing how to respond to such a statement, Tem opens and closes his mouth a few times before nodding again and walking mechanically over to a bench and sitting down. In his pocket, his phone buzzes once more. Without being able to figure out what to do next, the alpaca pulls out his phone and opens his messages.

Another, almost identical, message comes through soon afterward.

Tem frowns at the two messages and quickly puts a plan together, even if he knows it's risky and stupid.

The alpaca sends directions, and waits.

Several hours later, he sneaks back up the stairs that he and Haru walked down just a few minutes ago. The garden is less colourful at night, and the scents are less intense, at least to his herbivore nose. Tem’s footsteps onto the roof space precede two heavier sets by no more than thirty seconds, but his scalp prickles at the sensation. His heart begins to beat more heavily in his chest, and his breath quickens. Watching the door open to reveal Riz’s huge body eclipsing the doorway only serves to heighten his reaction. When Riz squeezes through the door and is followed by the imposing figure of Legosi slinking behind him, Tem almost laughs at their comical presentation. He waves them over, and they approach hesitantly.

“Guys, seriously, come over and we can sit down,” Tem says a little impatiently, pointing at an area of concrete already warmed by the sun and with lots of room. Obediently, both carnivores walk over and sit in an awkward triangle on the ground with Tem. As they sit, he feels the instinct to escape once again, almost like his legs are trying to run on their own. Tem sits heavily cross legged so they can’t kick out.

“How are you doing?” Riz asks gently after a while.

“Honestly? I’m not doing that great.” As he speaks, Tem chokes on a sob that wells itself unbidden from his throat, and Legoshi immediately reaches out a clawed hand and catches the alpaca’s hand. The speed and unexpectedness of the gesture makes all three of them freeze. Tem looks wide-eyed from his hand to the wolf, and meets a pair of eyes in the middle of full blown panic. With a damp chuckle, Tem relaxes, and puts his other hand over Legoshi’s, running his hand over the sharp claws. “How was Drama club?” He asks.

“Uh, it was difficult,” Legoshi says. “The herbivores and carnivores split themselves up, and the Bill and Ellen started arguing. It was loud.”

“What were they arguing about?” Tem asks, poking the mental wound to see if would bleed any more.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about it,” Legoshi says.

“It was about the devouring, right?” Tem forges ahead, still staring at Legoshi’s hands. “I bet Ellen was saying that it could have been one of the club, and the herbivores are at risk, like she usually does when it’s about carnivores. And Bill was probably, well, Bill. Am I right?”

“Pretty much,” Riz admits. “Ellen was saying that one of us wanted to devour you but settled for a different alpaca instead.”

Legoshi gasps, but something about the honesty warms Tem and makes him feel safer.

“The police think it was a student. Do you think it was someone in club?” Tem speaks in a matter-of-fact voice before looking up at the two large carnivores with a hard stare. “Was it either of you? Apparently it was a large breed carnivore.”

Again, both other animals freeze, and Tem finds himself holding his breath behind the hard facade. Eventually, Legoshi shakes his head.

“It wasn’t either of us. We both sort of accused the other, but we worked it out. I smelled blood in the carnivore dorm on someone there, but I couldn’t find who it was.” The wolf’s somber voice is tinged with regret. Then, he shuffles closer so that he isn’t stretching his arm out, and grips Tem’s hand tighter. “Are you thinking about how he died?” He asks with surprising insight.

Tem nods, feeling the sob begin to make its way into the open again. “I heard him go out for a walk,” he half-whispers, beginning to cry in earnest. “I thought it was a bad idea going out so late, but I let him go, and now he’s dead.”

Riz moves to pull Tem into a hug, making the alpaca yelp slightly as he is easily lifted into the bear’s lap. When the large arms close around him, Tem stops crying for a moment in surprise. “It’s not your fault. It’s the fault of whoever perpetrated the devouring.”

Tem feels his back being enclosed against Riz’s chest by Legoshi, the wolf’s muzzle burying itself in his neck to try and comfort him. “You’re safe, and we’ll keep you safe,” he says voice muffled by Tem’s wool. “You don’t have to be alone right now.”

“No one else is at my dorm anymore, they’re all staying with family,” Tem wails into the bear’s body. “I don’t want to go back there and see his fucking empty bunk again!”

“It’s okay,” Riz soothes. “We can stay with you for a little longer.”

The trio fall into a quiet embrace, sitting amongst the scents of the now-closed flowers. Without really knowing how, or realising when, all three of the animals manage to fall asleep, and Tem only wakes up because his phone buzzes to tell him to plug it in to charge. Trying to figure out what happened, the alpaca looks at his surroundings by the meagre torchlight from his cellphone. He has remained on top of Riz, although the bear is laying on his back now. Half of Tem’s body is draped in the bear’s arm, and the other half is draped in Legoshi. By the way the wolf keeps clutching at Riz’s uniform, the two have become closer than Tem could have hoped for in just a few days.

The alpaca’s eyes feel worn out from crying and his mouth is tacky from dehydration, like it’s coated in a fine layer of dust. He would have shivered at the cold, but being covered in warm carnivore fur prevents the worst of the chill getting to him. Checking his phone shows the time is four in the morning, and Tem groans. However, when he tries to get up from the pile of fur, Legoshi lets out a pathetic mewling sound and wraps his arms tighter around Tem, preventing him from leaving. Despite being so worn out, Tem snorts a laugh and smiles. The sound seems to wake Riz, as the bear begins to shift, and his free hand goes to rub sleep from his eyes.

“What time is it?” He rumbles.

“Four,” Tem answers simply.

“Fuck. We need to head back to the dorms.”

“Well I would, but someone isn’t letting me.”

Riz carefully extricates himself from the pile, being careful not to drop Tem as he lowers the alpaca onto the concrete. “I think it’s a canine thing,” he says, sitting up and smirking at the scene of Tem being thoroughly trapped. Legoshi lets out another sound of complaint, this time with an added grumble at the end. The bear reaches over and shakes his shoulder gently. “Legoshi, wake up.”

It takes a few goes, but eventually he rouses the wolf. “Where am I?” Legoshi asks. “I was having this dream where I was cuddling Tem, is that weird?”

Tem lets out a giggle, muffled by Legoshi’s strong arms wrapped around him. “It’s happening in real life, but lots of people might think it’s weird anyway,” he teases. In truth, being totally enclosed by another animal’s embrace, a male carnivore no less, makes Tem feel a little uncomfortable and vulnerable. There’s something else there, though, a safety that he’s never felt anywhere else. ‘Why does this wolf make me feel like this, when even Els doesn’t? ’ He thinks to himself. The emotions stirring in his gut feel dangerous and spiked, like barbed wire, and Tem avoids touching them.

“What?! I’m sorry! In my dorm we have cuddle piles, I must have just grabbed you in my sleep, I’m so sorry!” Legoshi begins to babble as he quickly releases Tem and scrabbles to his feet.

“It’s okay, Legoshi. You didn’t mean to,” Tem says as he picks himself up. With the added distance between himself and either of the two carnivores, the tangle of feelings stops writhing so much, making it easier to push them away. “I guess I should go back to my dorm. The school probably doesn’t even know that I’m back. The police told us we could go home, and everyone but me did.”

There’s a beat of silence while Riz and Legoshi conspicuously share a glance over Tem’s head, but neither of them say anything. The trio make their way to the door and walk down the stairs in silence. As they walk through the campus at night, Tem looks constantly this way and that, searching the shadows for anything that could be a threat. As if communicating telepathically, both Riz and Legoshi step slightly close to the alpaca, their furs standing on end in a protective posture to any onlookers. Tem looks up at them, part of his herbivore mind screaming to get as far away as possible. ‘I’ve never seen them this riled up before, usually they’re so quiet and reserved,’ he thinks to himself. ‘Their fur is so beautiful in the moonlight.’ Tem’s eyes widen and he bites his tongue as the thought passes through his mind. ‘No, shut up, shut the fuck up. Just get back to your dorm. Why are these carnivores so difficult to be around?!’

They walk in silence, escorting Tem back to the herbivore dorm tower. When they do arrive, he walks in through the doors without saying a word to the others. Part of him feels bad for deserting them even after they tried so hard to comfort him, but the larger part of him silences the voice of regret. It’s the same part that propels himself up the stairs to his room and throws himself into his bed, the same part that runs from everything that scares him. When he finally falls back asleep, he dreams of being held in their arms. When he wakes, he curses his imagination.

Chapter Text

Seven days before a pup comes into his own

~~ Legoshi ~~

“Tem has, sadly, as of today, withdrawn from Drama club. He has told me to pass on his well wishes for our upcoming production of Adler, but will not be participating. He may return at a later date, but he asks that each of us respects his decision and refrain from asking him to come back before he is ready.”

Legoshi’s heart drops as Sanu gives the news to the rest of the club, and he shares a long look with Riz as the assembled animals begin to whisper and mutter amongst themselves.

“But the play’s less than a month away! Couldn’t he stick it out a little longer?” Bill complains. Even though it’s a callous thing to say, Legoshi can’t help but see a number of other members agreeing with the tiger.

“His roommate was just devoured, Bill,” Riz says, voice carrying over the group murmur. “He’s allowed to grieve.”

Before Bill can retort, Louis steps forward from his position at Sanu’s side. “This is a great setback, whatever the circumstances, but we can pull through together, I know it,” Louis says, his words drawing admiration from every herbivore in the room, and even a few carnivores. Legoshi struggles to feel anything solid towards the buck, not even resentment at his treatment of carnivores. He struggles to have many strong feelings about anything lately

It’s been a few days since that night with Tem and Riz, and the alpaca hasn’t returned any of their messages. It’d been quite worrying to Legoshi that Tem had confronted them about if they were the devourers while no one else was around. He’s used to herbivores dealing with their business or doing risky things while surrounded by other herbivores. The only reason Legoshi can think of for a herbivore to do something like that alone would be if they wanted it to go badly.

“It’ll take a week to figure out who will replace him, so I want all male actors to start learning Odie’s lines in the meantime,” Louis says as Legoshi tunes back into the conversation. At that, many of the aforementioned actors groan in frustration, but Kai punches the air in excitement. “With hard work and perseverance, we can make this play work. With the recent devouring, we need to present as united a front as possible to the first-years coming into the school and show them that Cherryton is safe.”

As the club disperses amongst their tasks, Legoshi finds himself contemplating Tem throughout the afternoon. He doesn’t want the alpaca to be hurt, in fact, he wants to protect him, and if Tem doesn’t feel comfortable enough to come back to the club that he loves so much, then something must be wrong. Legoshi frowns as he fixes a light while sitting in a semicircle with the rest of the stage crew while they tend to their own little jobs and chat. Dom and Kibi are talking about the news, and it makes the wolf’s frown deepen with passing each second.

“Whoa, are you okay there, Legoshi?” Dom asks in a friendly, yet worried, tone of voice. “You’re kinda snarling at that spotlight.”

Legoshi looks up with surprise, not realising how much of his inner turmoil is showing on his face. Kibi is looking at him with wide eyes, shock and a little tinge of horror evident in his expression. “Sorry!” Legoshi apologises quickly, covering the front of his muzzle with a han and ears going back. “I’m just, uh, unsettled since the devouring,” he says as way of an explanation, but it doesn’t seem to reassure any of the herbivores in the group. “I mean that everyone is on edge, both herbivores and carnivores, and that stresses me out. I don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen, and then this light breaks.”

“I guess that’s fair enough. I know that Tem’s been taking the whole thing pretty hard, and not having him around must be pretty stressful,” Dom says.

“Exactly!” Legoshi agrees enthusiastically before realising that the peafowl brought up Tem unprompted. “I mean, yeah, Tem’s a really positive guy in club, everyone likes him, and so it makes sense that club is harder.” He pointedly ignores the raised eyebrows shared between Kibi and Dom.

“Seems like Tem really means a lot to you, Legoshi,” Kibi says, picking up on Dom’s avenue of enquiry. “You seem like really good friends .”

“Well, yeah, but it’s not like his only friend, everyone likes him,” Legoshi repeats lamely.

“Yeah, you said,” Kibi replies before getting lightly swatted by Dom. “Hey!”

“Well I think it’s great that you’re close with each other. You know, I went to a cafe in town a few days ago with Trent, he’s a pheasant from Art club, and it was really nice, you and Tem should come along next time,” Dom says after glaring at Kibi.

“Oh, he hasn’t replied to my messages for a few days,” Legoshi admits, looking down at the light as he fidgets with it. “I think he’s probably overwhelmed by everything that’s happened.”

“Ah, that’s a shame, I hope he pops back up on the radar soon,” Dom says.

“Yeah, same.”

~~~

Four days later
Three days before a pup comes into his own

~~ Riz ~~

The soundbox, above all other things, is quiet. It’s what makes the space Riz’s sanctuary, the one place in the school that he can control all sound and light that regularly assaults his brain throughout the day. It’s been difficult to concentrate in classes as it is with his migraines, but the devouring has unsettled everyone in the school, and the constant whispering from other students is so distracting. And of course, because he’s a large breed carnivore, more of the whispers are directed at him, although the whisperers probably can’t tell that he can hear them. 

Here, though, in the gentle calm of the soundbox, Riz can be as loud or as quiet as he wants. He can trial soundscapes and test microphones to his heart’s content, or at least until the end of club. Most people leave him alone up here, and that’s mostly how Riz likes it. 

There is one thing that has been breaking his peaceful solitude lately, and they’re the one thing that not even honey can help suppress. His dreams.

Due to side effects of his medication, Riz has always had crazy dreams. Usually they’re violent in some way, the bloodshed being his own or someone else’s doesn’t seem to be affected by his life at all, but it’s an overarching theme. Occasionally, he’ll have dreams about hurting other people, and he always wakes up from them feeling sick. Mostly, however, he’s become so desensitised to them that he doesn’t think about it unless they’re exceedingly disturbing. The monotonous horror of sleep doesn’t have much variation in his experience, apart from growing older, and so he can’t help but feel unnerved by the fact that Legoshi has been showing up in them every night for the past week.

Sometimes he’s getting hurt, or hurting someone else, slotting into the running plots like one of the usual actors has gotten sick and is taking time off from the stage. Other times, Riz gets a break from being tortured, and instead spends the night in the wolf’s company on the banks of a stream or eating lunch with Tem. He never talks that much, just like he is in the real world, but Riz can’t ever shake the feeling that he’s holding back.

Riz takes off his headphones and leans back in his chair, closing his eyes as he remembers last night’s dream.

‘You have something on you, stay still,’ Legoshi says, leaning down and reaching out a hand to Riz’s ear. They’re by the river again, the one he used to see when visiting his grandparents as a cub, and he’s sitting against the old cherry tree. It’s not blossom season yet, but this tree never has the copious flowers that other cherries do anyway. It’s not that kind of tree. Riz remains motionless as the wolf’s hand pulls back with something brown and twig-like cupped gently in its palm. As he watches, Riz can see it move a leg. ‘It’s a female,’ Legoshi adds, staring at the stick insect with that same intensity that he has when doing lighting, or when he looks at Tem and thinks noone’s looking at him.

‘How can you tell?’ Riz asks. The bug takes a few slow steps over the wolf’s fur, but he makes sure it doesn’t fall off. Legoshi’s claws are so sharp.

‘It’s larger.’ The answer is simple, informative, and totally unhelpful for those who don’t already know about what stick insects look like. It’s a very Legoshi answer. ‘Do you want to hold it?’

Riz feels sudden panic as Legoshi holds out his hand that cradles the bug. He can feel the sensation of Legoshi’s collar in his hands from when Riz almost attacked him, and the sweet smell of blood enters his nostrils again. Riz shakes his hands in refusal quickly. ‘I’ll hurt it, I don’t think I can be gentle like you,’ he says. If it’s just a dream, there’s no point in not being honest.

‘You can, don’t worry. I’ll show you.’ Legoshi catches one of Riz’s wrists with his free hand and holds it still, carefully decanting the stick insect onto his palm. Riz squirms in an effort to get away and stay still at the same time. After he manages to calm down, the pressure on his wrist releases, and Riz feels a breeze over his fur as the wolf sits down carefully beside him, still looking intently at the bug. His ears flick back and forth on his head, but Riz doesn’t say anything about it.

‘There are some species of phasmid that are entirely asexual,’ Legoshi rattles off like he’s speaking directly from a textbook. ‘They have lost the ability to reproduce sexually and only make clones of themselves.’

‘Sounds lonely, if all your children are the same as you,’ Riz says.

Legoshi’s ears stop twitching, and he nods. ‘Yeah. Lonely for the children, too.’

When Riz awoke at three in the morning, his phone screen was still open on the article about stick insects he was reading before falling asleep. Legoshi’s last words were not in the article, but something about them felt like the most important part of everything he said.

Three days later
The night a pup comes into his own

~~ Legoshi ~~

Talking to Louis always feels…weird. Legoshi knows that’s an unsatisfying answer, he’s even been told so by Jack when he’s tried talking about why he feels uneasy around the buck. It’s like Louis is constantly pushing him to do something, always trying to get some reaction that he never manages to get out of the wolf. It reminds Legoshi of Tem asking him and Riz to come up to the roof of one of the buildings, except instead of grief filling Louis’ heart, it’s anger. At what specifically, Legoshi can’t figure out, but it always seems to get harsher when the buck has to deal with him. Even now, as Legoshi stands in the background of the team-leader’s room with Louis talking to Zoe, he can tell that those large brown eyes are looking at him in their peripheries. 

‘ I wonder what it’s like to have such a captivating presence ,’ Legoshi thinks. ‘ Everyone finds it so hard not to look at Louis, and he’s magic on stage. I hate being looked at, especially now. ’ The wolf rubs his muzzle absent-mindedly where his new teeth have come through surprisingly quickly, each looking very out of place in comparison to their neighbours. It was all he could not to acknowledge the look of fear and confusion on Kai’s face yesterday when Legoshi bared his fangs at him in this very same room. ‘

“It was a twist of fate to see you here, Odie the water spirit,” Louis says, surprising both Legoshi and Zoe.

“Uh, what?” The goat asks. 

“That was your cue.” Louis’ voice is deadpan and already unimpressed.

“I haven’t learned Odie’s lines yet, I’m sorry,” Zoe apologises. 

With a flash of anger that Legoshi has come to know and fear, Louis gets up from his seat on the couch and stalks towards Zoe. When he gets within reach, he grabs the goat’s face and sneers, the sudden change in the air making Legoshi’s hackles threaten to stand on end. Before he can say anything to stop the buck, however, the door opens without a knock and Riz walks in. The bear freezes with his hand on the doorknob, eyebrows raised and mouth hanging slightly open at the tableau.

“I don’t remember inviting you here, Riz,” Louis says coldly, still not letting go of Zoe’s jaw.

“I was looking for Legoshi, and someone told me he was up here,” Riz says, looking from the deer to wolf in confusion. Legoshi tries desperately to unlock the power of telepathy just to convey his discomfort, but he just can’t quite manage to do it.

“You should learn to knock before entering a room, a large carnivore like you barging in could give people the wrong idea,” Louis taunts, dropping his hold on Zoe and sauntering over to Riz, looking up at him critically. “Although, it’s actually good that you’re here. I have a job for you, if you’re so desperate to spend time with Legoshi, since he’s coming with us right now.”

“What? Where are you going?” Legoshi says, finally finding his voice again. 

“For a little secret practise, of course,” Louis replies easily. “Seeing as Zoe here seems to have eaten the script rather than read it, he needs a little extra coaching, and so we need a lookout.” He turns his attention back to Riz. “And now, we can have our sound expert with us as well to help with the cues.”

“But we’ll get caught!” Legoshi protests. “It’s already night time, we should be heading back to our dorms.”

“It’s funny you should say that, seeing how I know both you and this bear have begun skulking around after curfew. Maybe I should just offer you both one of my legs, given that you seem so keen on making everyone suspect you of devouring that alpaca, then I’m sure you’d say yes in an instant. With Zoe here, you both can have a leg each and still leave us with at least one to stand on.”

“Shut the fuck up, Louis.”

Legoshi gapes as Riz speaks, silencing the buck with five words and his height alone. The bear’s voice is coupled with the slightest hint of a growl, and Legoshi feels both a spike of anxiety and relief as Louis stops speaking. Once again, the smell of fear releases into the room, and Legoshi’s tongue involuntarily flicks out of his mouth, although he doesn’t think anyone notices with all eyes on Riz. 

“We can help with your practice, if Legoshi wants to go,” Riz continues, glaring down at Louis. “But don’t ever say shit like that to him again. Or me. You don’t get to talk about the devouring like that.”

The way Riz defends Legoshi makes a slight tingle run up his spine. It’s an unfamiliar sensation, and he can’t help but notice how the bear’s shoulder muscles press against his shirt when he stands straight up. “It’s alright, I’ll go, I don’t mind,” Legoshi says, trying to placate both Louis and Riz at the same time.

“There, see? He’s a good dog,” Louis rallies, throwing his much-used insult at Legoshi as he leaves with Zoe. As their footsteps retreat from the door, Riz’s fur relaxes, although he bares his fangs at the door.

“Fucking dick,” Riz mutters.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Legoshi says with a sigh. “Thanks for coming with me, though. What did you want to talk to me about?”

Riz gives Legoshi a look that he can’t decipher, but that is a familiar experience for the wolf. “We can talk later.”

~~

The night sky shows off its myriad sequins to Legoshi as he paces back and forth outside the auditorium doors. ‘ Why does it take so long to rehearse! ’ He thinks to himself, constantly checking his surroundings for staff or students. He knows why, but every second out here makes him feel more and more exposed, and he hates that feeling. His mouth aches again, and the pain hasn’t gone down all day. ‘ Guess I’m going to lose even more teeth, they’ll probably look just as messed up as the rest. ’

A scratching sound to his left makes Legoshi whip around, but he can’t see anyone in the courtyard. He hears the sound again, but this time he realises that it’s coming from the ground near his foot. Looking down, Legoshi sees a cockroach crawling along the concrete, occasionally stopping and waggling its antennae in the air or touching the ground with them. He squats down to look at the insect closer, feeling himself relax slightly as he watches its movement. “What are you doing out, buddy?” Legoshi asks the cockroach. “Finding food? Sounds better than what I’m doing. I’m just doing something really stupid because I can’t say no. I wish I was a bug, then I wouldn’t have to worry about these chang–” He stops speaking. There’s something else that enters his mind, made all the more intense by the intake of air over his tongue and the top of his mouth. It makes him stop looking at the cockroach, even as it flies away. It makes him stop doing anything other than concentrate on the smell.

‘What is that? It’s sweet and earthy, like wild apples, or carrots pulled from the ground,’ he thinks to himself. His skin starts to feel hot with each passing second under his fur. It’s uncomfortable, but everything else seems unimportant in comparison to the scent. ‘It’s coming across the courtyard from beside the fountain, and it’s so good . Oh Rex, I’m so hungry. What was I doing before? I don’t care, I need that smell.’

Legoshi’s fur stands on end, and his mouth fills with drool as the scent is pulled deep into his nostrils. The wolf greedily sniffs the air in search for more of that heavenly smell, and he gets down on all fours in an effort to reach out closer to the source, long tongue tasting the air incessantly. The scent grasps his brain stem and sends electric fire down his nerves and through his limbs, lengthening his claws and sharpening his fangs. Part of the wolf tries to fight the reaction, knowing this is wrong , but he can’t stop the rising surge of adrenaline that bubbles with excitement through his blood. The mists around the fountain clear slightly, and Legoshi sees the source of the smell, one that he already knew would be there. 

A small, helpless, soft, tasty herbivore.

Legoshi’s foot scrapes gently against the concrete, and the rabbit freezes. Both he and the herbivore stay motionless for a moment, and the part of himself trying to wrestle back control of his body screams desperately for her to run away, but the words don’t get further than his mind. The wolf’s breath speeds up, flooding his blood with oxygen in preparation for the chase. 

Time seems to slow as the moment stretches into infinity, the rabbit’s silhouette becomes outlined with the yellow-red stench of fear, and fills his vision until everything else becomes a colourless background. A bitter taste creeps across Legoshi’s tongue as the morsel stands frozen, his body revolting against the hesitation of the kill, howling and hissing for blood and meat. Just as he is about to run, a sickly-sour smell filters through the courtyard, and the wolf momentarily looks away. As he does, the rabbit starts to run, and he brushes off the second scent as he begins to tear towards the fountain.

Legoshi’s claws scrape against the ground as he lopes through the night, easily outpacing the rabbit in long bounds. It wants to be caught, to be eaten, and the wolf is more than happy to oblige. The bitter taste continues to spill across his palate, and he can’t take the taste any longer. With a growl of pure joy and bloodlust, Legoshi pushes off a crack in the concrete and leaps, soaring through the air in a perfect arc. As his pounce reaches its end, the wolf is almost sad as the chase finishes so soon after it began, but it quickly dissipates in the elation at catching his prey. The wolf rolls with the rabbit in his arms, tumbling to a stop crouched over the herbivore, a rumbling growl starting in his stomach and out through his breath, mixing with the bitter taste and covering the rabbit in the acrid stench of starvation.

‘What am I doing!? I’ve just attacked a fellow student, a herbivore!’ The wolf’s thoughts race with the weight of the situation, muscles aching with the effort of not ripping his prey apart right then and there. A string of drool drips from Legoshi’s teeth and onto one of the rabbit’s ears, slipping over her fur and falling down her forehead. ‘I was so hungry, and then she was just there, like she was served up by the world. Her fur is so soft, and her flesh is so warm. I’m so cold. If I bite down, will I become that warm? It feels like I’ve been freezing my whole life. I can’t go back now, is this what we’re made for?’ The rabbit lets out a whimper as Legoshi’s claws begin to press into the outer layer of her uniform. ‘Shit! I’m so fucking sorry, whoever you are, I don’t want to hurt you, I swear!’ The bitter taste is overpowering now, and its scent stains the herbivore’s fur where the drool has begun to soak through.

Suddenly, the wolf’s ears and nose twitch at the presence of a spectator to his crime. Not another herbivore though, thank Rex, but the same sour smell from before. A carnivore. A flush of possessive anger blooms in Legoshi’s chest, and his claws pierce the rabbit’s skin as he involuntarily squeezes her closer. As the meat bleeds, the wolf panics, and his grip loosens apologetically. The rabbit takes the opportunity to bolt, pulling free despite the claws in her arms, skin and cloth tearing in the process. As she runs across the courtyard, Legoshi’s attention is caught between the white-furred herbivore and a shadow pushing off from a nearby building on an interception course with the rabbit.

The wolf’s body lurches forward in a movement that has nothing to do with rational thought, the guilt and rage becoming a volatile mix that powers Legoshi’s muscles like rocket fuel. Part of him wants to run back to his dorm and hide from his shame, but the rest can’t stand the thought of his prey getting poached by another predator. Legoshi’s powerful frame once again kicks off, this time chasing the other carnivore in lieu of the rabbit, bitter spittle collecting at the corners of his mouth. The three of them run through the silent buildings in a mindless chase, none of them using their words, or even thoughts. As they pass under a light, Legoshi recognises the sandy coat of a dingo, not clothed in the school uniform, but only insofar as it confirms to his delight that he can outrun the other canid. In the randomly sparking tangle of instincts that currently passes for the wolf’s brain, his attention turns from the rabbit to the carnivore. Anything will do at this point to relieve the nauseating bitterness that coats the inside of his mouth, even, it seems, dingo.

Legoshi reaches with one clawed hand and grabs the carnivore by the scruff of its neck, sinking his claws through layers of skin and fat with a delicious ease. The dingo yelps and stumbles face first into a wooden bench, nose breaking with a satisfying crunch, sweet crimson soaking into its shirt from the claw marks on its neck. Not to be caught so easily, the dingo twists and squirms to the side just as Legoshi’s bulk lands on where it fell, narrowly avoiding being crushed. The other canid leaps onto Legoshi’s back in a frenzied attempt to bite into his neck and end the fight quickly, but sinks its teeth into his hard shoulder muscles instead. The wolf snarls and scrabbles at his back, managing to wrench an arm forward and dislodging the fangs from his shoulder. As the dingo falls forward over his shoulder, Legoshi pushes its face into the ground and brings the arm up to his closing jaws.

There is no hesitation this time in the fight for life or death, and his teeth rip the dingo’s flesh apart. Blood bursts from the wounds and drowns Legoshi’s throat, so much so that he almost chokes on it. It tastes sour and dark, a flavour that he has never experienced in his life, and one he can’t seem to get more of. Instead of shaking the limb into uselessness, Legoshi lets go and bites down again, further up the arm, desperate to get closer to the pumping source of the blood. With each bite, the bitter taste washes away until only the sour blood remains, marring the dingo’s flesh with ragged trenches that bleed profusely. Its wails are muffled by the concrete its face is pushed into, and it’s only when Legoshi tries to flip the canid over does it get the opportunity to fight back. A powerful kick makes contact with the wolf’s throat and makes him choke for air, releasing the dingo to hold his throat instead.

The wolf pulls air into his chest in great, burning lungfuls, and his eyes water as the other canid runs away cradling its ruined arm. Despite its wounds, its clothes manage to soak most of the blood up, only leaving small drips here and there. When Legoshi finally gets his breath back, he moves single-mindedly after the dingo, following its scent trail over a back-section of the school wall that he scales with un-wolflike ease and down a darkened path. He stalks the dingo silently through the trees that the path leads to, ignoring the smells of old cigarettes and discarded alcohol bottles, focused solely on the sour trail. Legoshi follows deeper into the small copse until the smell becomes paired with the sound of rapid breathing and slight groaning just ahead. As he pushes past some broken ferns, the dingo’s body comes into view, sprawled amongst the undergrowth.

Its clothes are now sopping with blood, much more than would normally flow from the wounds, and the sticky sour liquid is soaking into the ground. The canid’s eyes gaze listlessly into the canopy as it pants fast and shallow. Its tongue lolls to the side from its open mouth, revealing pale lips and gums to the trees. Legoshi’s nose wrinkles at a patch of vomit nearby in which he can smell deer meat. The evidence of predation stirs something in the wolf’s brain, kicking his vocal chords into action.

“Who did you eat?” Legoshi growls, stooping down and hauling the dingo up by its collar. “I felt so bad about attacking that rabbit, I stopped myself, but you didn’t, did you?” He accuses, although he gets no response from the limp figure. “I stopped myself, do you hear me!” The wolf’s voice cracks slightly as he shouts, desperation clear in his tone and tears welling in his eyes. “But you didn’t! And now I’ve hurt you so badly, and I’m so sorry!” Legoshi sobs out his words, dropping to his knees in the dirt, leaning his forehead on the dingo’s chest, feeling its heart flutter and pound in an uneven rhythm. “I don’t know what I’ve done to you, but I’ll make it right, I swear, I’m so sorry, I’ll make it right. I’ll pray for you, but I have to finish this because you’re suffering,” Legoshi rambles to himself, stomach gurgling and tail wagging in a betrayal of his deeper intentions. He raises his head and looks into the sightless eyes of his dying prey. “You ate someone, and so now I have to eat you. This will make things right. I’m so hungry.”

The wolf feels his self-control slipping away with each passing second of being exposed to the bleeding canid, and he’s not sure if he even wants to keep a hold on it. This is too horrible, too profane to be done intentionally. It helps him feel better to let his instincts take over, but he makes himself kill quickly. Legoshi’s maw surrounds the dingo’s throat, and as swiftly as possible, he crunches down and tears the flesh away in a great chunk. He swallows it whole, feeling the first morsel travel down his throat and into his stomach where it comes to its rest. A feeling of peace sweeps over the wolf, calming his tingling spine and loosening the tightness in his chest. Legoshi lets out a deep sigh of relief, as if he has been running his whole life and has finally sat down. The blood pumps erratically a few times from the dingo’s ravaged throat before it finally expires, changing in an instant from dying animal to cooling meat.

In the silence of the trees, Legoshi hears no vengeful shout from on high, sees no waiting herbivores in the bushes ready to arrest him. There’s only him, his hunger, and an ample supply of food.

The wolf lowers his head once more to the corpse and begins his feast.

Chapter Text

~~ Legoshi (?) ~~

Cloth tears, ripping open to reveal the blood-soaked fur underneath, and then the skin tears, ripping open to reveal the bruised muscle under that. Legoshi barely thinks as he moves, but his brain is certainly not quiet. In fact, two separate sets of instincts are wrestling for control over his body, causing his hands to shake and his claws to slice jagged lines instead of the neat incisions that they should be making. One set of instincts is telling him to pull the corpse apart and rip out the offal first, devouring the heart, liver, and lungs of the unfortunate dingo. The other set can’t be bothered with all that, and is urging him to just tear pieces off and swallow them whole. The former wins out, but only barely.

The result is an awkward stopping and starting; jaws close over the stomach and rip abdominal muscles free before the opening is more wrenched open with powerful hands and the viscera pulled free out onto the ground. Above all else, it’s messy, and gives the appearance that two separate beasts are devouring the dingo’s corpse. The pungent sour smell of carnivore blood and flesh rolls from the body, filling Legoshi’s brain with a carnal hunger that he can’t help but satisfy. After the abdominal muscles, the heart is cut free of its housing, still-warm blood oozing from the limp arteries and veins as he takes a bite with shaking hands. It bursts into his mouth as he bites down, coating his tongue with sour cherry like the most forbidden of fruits. It tastes like everything wrong with him, and he can’t get enough. He’s starving, and only flesh can satisfy his cravings.

The meal lays listless on the ground as its insides become its outsides, rocking back and forth every now and then as Legoshi shakes his head from side to side in order rip off another mouthful.

‘What am I fucking doing? ’ He asks himself once again. He’s asked himself the same question a hundred times, but he can’t quite muster the horrified revulsion that he might normally experience. Legoshi’s question is disconnected from his body, from his morality, and now it’s cut loose like a kite tumbling on the wind. ‘ I’m protecting herbivores, ’ his mind supplies as he bites into the spongy mass of the lungs. It’s like fleshy cotton candy with a bit more substance than the sugary treat. Instead of dissolving into syrup, this candy deflates into mushy flesh in his mouth before being swallowed. ‘It tastes so fucking good. Why do you have to taste so good? ’

With the morbid curiosity of someone seeing how far they can peer over the ledge before falling, Legoshi slides his claws in between one set of ribs and braces his hand against the sternum. It’s shockingly easy to pull the bone free of its meaty housing, and the crunching pop of cartilage giving way tickles something in the hybrid’s brain, goading him further. The broken tip of the bone shines in the moonlight as he holds it up, and he reaches down to crack another off the corpse. The instinct to gnaw at the bones takes over, and the scraping of flesh from its place feels delightful against his incisors. Moving from the ribs to the haunches, Legoshi tears off more pieces with his jaws, eating with abandon and no sign of slowing down. He feels like he could go on forever, tearing this creature apart piece by piece, and never feel full. In an effort to taste as much as possible of the forbidden meal, he buries his face in the chest cavity and laps the blood pooling there like it’s the sweetest ambrosia, tinged with a sour citrus sauce. 

The consumption is at once, both righteous and disgusting, and with every morsel he swallows, Legoshi can feel a piece of himself breaking away. It’s not like he hasn’t had predatory thoughts before, but he’s always managed to resist them until now. ‘What changed this time? ’ Legoshi thinks, still insulated from his rising panic by the fog of dissociation. ‘It’s because he was chasing that rabbit, right? I couldn’t let him attack a herbivore, especially since he wasn’t going to stop himself like I did. But the chase felt so good, so right , and I couldn’t let him get Tem–’ Legoshi stops, staring into the darkness of the dingo’s ruined ribcage. ‘Tem…? Tem wasn’t there, why did I think that?'

Just as he begins to contemplate the question, the crack of a branch being broken echoes into the small clearing. 

Legoshi freezes, not sure whether to run, fight, or lay down and wait for the law’s cold embrace. Slowly, he pulls his bloody maw out of the cavity and sniffs the air, trying to find something over the smell of blood. Too much of it has covered his face, though, and all he can smell only makes his stomach rumble for even more flesh. Eyeing the surrounding forest for any shape vaguely recognisable as a person, Legoshi forces himself not to bare his fangs and growl.

“Legoshi?” Riz’s hesitant voice emanates from the darkness, quickly followed by the bear’s towering form. 

Legoshi didn’t even realise he was there, assuming he was one of the trees, but now that Riz is closer, the panic immediately overcomes his instincts. The hybrid is kneeling in a pool of blood and organs, covered in what used to be a living person, and he is so fucked . He immediately leaps backward, slipping on gore and tumbling onto the opposite side of the corpse. “Fuck, Riz, don’t look, I’m sorry, you should call the police, don’t come near me!” Legoshi babbles, raising one hand in surrender as he shuffles back from the bear. Now that he’s come back to his senses somewhat, he can see that the dingo’s body looks like it’s been ravaged by a whole pack of carnivores, not just one mostly-wolf. ‘ How much did I fucking eat?! ’ He thinks in horror, immediately getting on his hands and knees and reaching his fingers down his throat in order to puke up what’s left in his stomach. Legoshi hears Riz run forward, the bear grabbing both the scruff of his neck and his wrist, wrenching the hand away from his bloody mouth. 

“What are you doing?!” Legoshi shouts, trying and failing to get his exhausted muscles to fight against Riz’s solid grip.

“Stopping you from making this worse!” Riz explains urgently, the fur on his hands getting stained with the blood on Legoshi’s. “If you make yourself puke, that’ll just make the body easier to find! Just hold it in!”

“It should be found!” Legoshi growls. “ He should be found! I fucking killed him, Riz! I’m a fucking monster! I ate so much of him and I just want it out.” As he speaks, the hybrid’s precarious emotions finally tip over, and he starts to cry in earnest once again, curling up into a ball of shame. He feels the pressure on his wrist relent, and the hand come to rest on his back soon afterwards. Adding to Legoshi’s rising bewilderment, Riz begins to rub circles between his shoulders in an effort to calm him down. The movement is enough to shock the hybrid out of his despair, and he sits up slightly. “Why are you doing that?” He asks weakly.

Riz’s hand stops. “You did it for me, I guess it just seemed like something that would help,” he says lamely.

“But why are you helping me?” Legoshi doesn’t turn to look at Riz as he speaks, staring instead at the blood covering his claws.

Riz doesn’t answer immediately, taking a deep breath and swallowing before speaking. “You helped me when Tem’s blood was on my face and I freaked out like that. Louis fell off the stage while rehearsing and you were gone when I helped him back to his dorm. When we left the hall, though, I could smell your blood nearby, mixed with a bunch of other scents, and I got really worried. Louis and Zoe couldn’t smell it though, don’t worry, they just think that you got scared and went back to your dorm. I could smell herbivore blood as well, and well, I thought that you might have hurt someone, but I had to believe that you wouldn’t devour another student. All the way to Louis’ dorm and back, I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened and if you were okay or not. I found the trail of blood, both yours and that guy’s,” Riz gestures to the dingo out the corner of Legoshi’s eye as he continues, “and I followed it. I tried cleaning it up on the way, but I knew that I’d either find him eating you, or you eating him.” Riz stops and takes swallows again. “I’m glad it was you that was doing the devouring.”

“How are you okay with this?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to be around this. I can’t stop drooling, and everything in me is telling me to eat part of him too, but he smells…bad. I can smell it on you as well, like someone’s poured acid over him. I guess it’s some kind of venom with how melted parts of him look, and I don’t want to add another body here.”

Legoshi finally looks over to Riz, and he finally notices how the bear’s free hand clenches and unclenches, how he hunches forward but holds himself back at the same time. “I’m sorry,” he says. He can’t figure out exactly why he’s saying it, but he knows he has to apologise for something.

“Let’s just bury the body and clean you up,” Riz says, voice tired and strained. “I brought some buckets and rags.”

Legoshi nods, stands, and immediately falls over again. He doesn’t try and get back up again and groans as all his recent injuries catch up to him. “Ow,” he mumbles into the dirt.

Despite himself, Riz laughs. “I guess I’ll be doing the digging, then. Kind of annoying, I thought wolves were really good at that.”

After propping Legoshi up against a tree to rinse off the worst of the gore by himself and digging the hole, Riz turns back with a smile. “How are you going there?” He asks.

“I feel like I want to go to sleep and never wake up,” Legoshi answers, all filter over his own depressive thoughts now completely worn away, rubbed raw down to the bone.

“Well. Don’t do that,” Riz responds. “Jack would be sad, and I’d be too, so would Tem.”

“If Tem finds out what happened, I don’t think he would.”

“We’ll get there when we get there.”

Legoshi watches the body get buried along with his long-sleeve shirt, not even having the energy to help. Eventually, Riz helps him stand up, and they stumble back to the dorms, thankfully not seeing anyone else on the way. They stop at the showers quickly, and Legoshi scrubs the rest of the blood from his fur while Riz goes back to his own dorm to find a clean shirt for him to wear. The bitter taste of venom has completely left his mouth, and the sour blood has long been washed away with repeated rinses of water. It’s good that he can’t taste the dingo’s meat anymore, not just because it means he won’t get caught, but Legoshi can’t deny that some part of him misses it. ‘I’ll never be clean again,’ he thinks as the water flowing down the drain turns pink, and then slowly clears. ‘Is this what it is to be a carnivore? ’

The next morning

~~ Jack ~~

Jack’s alarm goes off under his pillow at its usual early hour, shunting his arm into movement like clockwork, hand grasping to silence the sound. It takes a few seconds of mindless flailing for his body to realise that the offending device is not there. The labrador’s brows knit in confusion as he begins to properly wake up, gears grinding into motion as he pulls himself out from the depths of sleep. ‘Where’s my phone? I’m pretty sure I didn’t leave it charging last night, but I could have? No, that’s not right, it doesn’t sound like it’s below me, it’s above me. Wait… above me?’

Jack’s eyes widen in panic as he finally remembers where he fell asleep the night before, and he bolts upright. Fueled by the rush of adrenaline, he tumbles out of Legoshi’s bed and races up the ladder to his own bunk, only allowing himself to relax once his phone is clutched tight in his hand. Silence rings out in the wake of the noise, and he forces himself to breathe quietly in an effort not to wake anyone that hasn’t already been disturbed from their own sleep. Jack has always justified his alarm being so early by the fact that he can turn it off without even having to be awake, but he’s only ever slept in his own bed until now.

“Thank fuck, I was about to go over to that bunk and kick you up that ladder myself.” Jack cringes at the sound of Voss’s quiet grumble and gets down from the ladder before looking around with an apologetic expression.

“Sorry, I forgot to take it with me with everything that happened last night,” Jack whispers, sitting down on the seat by the window and rubbing his eyes with one hand to get the sleep out of them. Although winter is starting to draw to a close, it’s still relatively dark at this time of the morning. Jack puts his chin in his hand as he leans his elbow on the windowsill, looking at Legoshi through the still open curtains of his bunk. The wolf rolls over in his sleep and the cream colour of last night’s bandages peeks out from under the bedcovers. Jack’s lips purse into a worried frown.

“Looks like whatever happened wore him out enough not to wake up from your alarm, anyway,” Voss says as he climbs up onto his cushion set on the windowsill.

“I’m glad he’s actually sleeping now,” Jack murmurs, wincing slightly as he thinks back on the experience of trying to sleep next to the incredibly restless wolf. “I must have woken up five times to get him back to sleep.”

“Seven,” Voss says. “Legoshi might have the best nose, but I’ve got the best ears,” he adds in response to Jack’s confused expression. “And you woke up seven times by my count. What do you think happened?”

“Riz said that he was fighting someone who was sneaking onto school grounds,” Jack says in a very uncertain voice.

“You don’t believe that shit, do you?” Voss asks incredulously.

Jack sighs. “No,” he admits. “Or at least, there’s something more to it. Legoshi has always been really quiet and anxious, but I can see him putting himself in danger if he was trying to protect someone else. But then, why didn’t he smell of whoever attacked him?”

“It wasn’t a bear that made those bites, so it probably wasn’t Riz. If Legoshi got any of the person’s blood on him, he would have had to take a shower to get the smell off before walking in here, which means he didn’t want us to know. And he didn’t go to the nurse, so he probably doesn’t want the school finding out either.” Voss numbers off the suspicious aspects of what happened on his fingers as he speaks through his thought process. “He did smell of something weird, so either he’s using some gross-smelling shampoo lately, or it was something in his mouth.” The fennec looks up from his hand at Jack with a hard expression. When he speaks again, it’s hushed, and it lacks the irreverent tone he usually employs. “Do you think he could have, like, snapped? He’s a big guy, and it’s not like he isn’t already a bit of an outcast. I’d guess that instincts are hard to suppress when you’re already not feeling good.”

Jack listens with rising horror and anger in defense of his friend until he can’t take it anymore. “No!” He says with more force and volume than he meant to. “No, I don’t think he ‘just snapped’. That smell wasn’t blood or meat, it was,” Jack stops himself before saying too much, finishing his sentence with an unconvincing “something else.”

‘Legoshi couldn’t have devoured someone, could he? Oh Rex, I can’t believe I’m even considering this! But could he have?! ’ Jack thinks quickly, an awful tightness beginning to form in his chest as he glances over Voss at Legoshi sleeping.

“What was it?” Voss asks. “And Jack, I’m not asking because I want to call the cops on him, I want to help him, and I can’t do shit if I don’t know anything. Surprise, surprise, I do actually care for my friend.”

“It was…venom,” Jack replies, sagging slightly in defeat. “His grandfather is a komodo dragon, don’t ask me how, and he’s a lovely guy, but Legoshi hasn’t spoken to him since we started here at Cherryton together. It’s why he never goes home for the holidays, or he goes with me, and it’s why he’s so much bigger than other grey wolves. I think he’s started getting some of the changes that his mother did, but instead of being covered in scales, he’s started making venom. I don’t think it’s the same as Gosha’s, but that’s what I smelled.”

Voss nods silently as Jack explains, reaction completely bereft of the surprise and horror that the labrador expects. “So if he got into a fight with someone and bit them, they could be really sick, or even dead?”

“Why are you so set on Legoshi being a fucking murderer?!” Jack retorts hotly.

“Because it’s important, Jack!” Voss responds with just as much anger. “I’m not as close to him as you, but I’m not going to stick my head in the sand! Something suspicious is going on, and you can’t just ignore that! I’m fucking tiny for a carnivore, I don’t have muscles, all I’m good for is using my brain, and I’m not going to turn it off just to make you feel better!”

“Well, yeah, okay, fine.” Jack stumbles over his words as he tries to find his footing in the conversation, not ready to abandon his best friend. “But you still accused him of eating meat, how am I supposed to react to something like that?!”

“I never said it was a bad thing.”

Jack opens his mouth to respond, but stops as he realises what Voss said. “What?” He asks weakly.

“Eating meat. It’s not a bad thing,” Voss explains. Jack’s eyes widen, not quite able to process what the fennec is saying. “It’s an essential part of a carnivore’s diet. Without it, you basically starve and get really fucked in the head, didn’t your parents give you the talk yet?”

“No?!” Jack says incredulously. “It’s people!”

“Well yeah, but that’s why you buy from funeral homes and hospitals, they’re already dead.” Voss speaks like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Aren’t your parents lawyers?” Jack asks, still trying to fit his head around the concept that the little fennec in front of him is openly admitting to one of the most stigmatised crimes in their society.

Voss shrugs. “So? Just means they’re more well read about it.”

“So have you, like, have you…” Jack trails off.

“Eaten meat?” Voss finishes for him. “Yeah, totally, I grew up eating it. Not lots, fennec foxes don’t actually need that much, but we eat a lot of bugs to make up for it.”

“Don’t you get like, withdrawals?” Jack asks, morbidly curious despite himself.

“You only get that if you’ve gone a really long time without eating meat and then you eat some. It’s why so many people who wait until they’re in highschool or older get withdrawal and get really fucked up from it. I don’t know the science behind it, but my mom described it like vitamin D. If you don’t go out into the sun enough, you don’t get enough vitamin D, and you get depressed as fuck. And if you literally haven’t seen the sun until you’re seventeen years old, of course you’re gonna want to go out as much as possible.” Voss gestures to his bunk with a thumb. “I’ve got a mini-fridge under my bed to keep some meat in so I can stay healthy. I only need to eat some every month or so, and I restock it in the mid-year break. It’s just nutrition.”

Jack sits back and tries to process this new information. ‘My roommate eats people. Holy shit. Voss eats people. But what if he’s right? If I just ignore it, I won’t be helping anyone, least of all Legoshi,’ he thinks. “But devouring someone’s a bit different to sitting in a sunny spot.”

“Yeah,” Voss sighs. “It’s why we need to keep an eye on Legoshi. If he’s eaten meat for the first time, it’s gonna have some crazy effects on his body, and knowing him, it’s just gonna make him hate himself even more than he already does.”

Jack nods glumly. Before he can say anything though, Voss stands up from his cushion and stretches.

“I need another hour in bed before I properly get up, so I’ll probably just watch some YouTube while you do whatever you do usually at this ungodly hour.” The fennec hops down from the windowsill and walks back to his bunk, yawning.

Usually, Jack would use this time to get changed and brush his teeth before doing some study, but something tells him that he won’t be able to concentrate on anything he reads. Instead, the labrador sets his alarm for another hour and a half, and climbs back into bed with Legoshi, letting himself be pulled closer by the larger carnivore in his sleep. Jack tries to let himself be comforted by the fact that his best friend feels so safe in his presence, but Voss’s words keep playing on repeat in his head.

‘Whatever’s happened with you Legoshi, I just hope you’re okay. Please don’t push me away.’

Chapter Text

~~ Riz ~~

Riz loiters in the hallway outside the room 701 and ignores the strange looks he gets from some of the other carnivores that walk past on their way to the cafeteria. He steps up and raises his hand to knock, but stops himself. With a sigh, his hand lowers and he steps back. It’s the fifth time he’s done this. ‘He probably doesn’t want to see you, you big dumb bear, why would he want a reminder of what happened last night first thing in the morning? ’ He thinks to himself, kicking idly at the carpet. Just as he’s about to make his own way to breakfast, the door opens to reveal a few of Legoshi’s roommates in the doorway, a hyena and the coyote that changed the bandages Riz inexpertly applied. 

“Look, I’m going down to have breakfast, I’m hungry as fuck,” the hyena says over his shoulder. When he goes to leave, he stops at the sight of Riz towering over him, and a nervous cackle escapes his mouth. “Oh, hey there,” he says quietly before going back into the room, closing the door behind him and leaving the coyote in the hallway with Riz.

“Um, sorry, I just wanted to see how Legoshi’s going,” Riz explains nervously, trying not to look threatening to the smaller carnivore.

“It’s alright, Miguno’s just still a bit stoned, I don’t think he realises how weird he’s being,” the coyote explains with an easy smile. “Thanks for bringing him back, by the way, he needs some more friends outside of us and that llama. I’m Durham.”

“Do you mean alpaca?” Riz asks, brows furrowing slightly in annoyance.

“Yeah, alpaca, my bad,” Durham says. “Anyway, the rest of the guys are trying to get Legoshi out of bed, it’s getting a bit…” He trails off, looking awkward.

“Is he okay?” Riz asks. For some reason, the thought of Legoshi doing badly makes his breath go shallow with worry. “I know he’s not been doing that great lately.”

“Well, you seem pretty close to him, so it’s probably okay to tell you,” Durham says, looking down the hall for anyone close before lowering his voice. “He’s been depressed for a while, since they were kids from what Jack’s told me, but I’ve never seen him this bad before. I think it kind of got to Miggy.”

The door opens to reveal the aforementioned labrador, who focuses on Riz and grabs his hand without a word, dragging him into the room with a frown. Riz lets himself be pulled along and quickly finds himself standing in the middle of a semicircle around Legoshi’s bunk, the curtains closed.

“Legoshi! Riz is here, and if you don’t come out right now, he’s going to pick you up and pull you out of there by force!” Jack says angrily at the curtains. “Collot’s too tired from getting high to drag you out this time, but I don’t think you’d be able to face off against a bear when he grabs you.”

“Wait what?” Riz asks, looking around at the other members of the dorm. "I'm grabbing him?"

“Yes,” Jack replies without taking his eyes off the bunk. “He needs to have breakfast, and he’s not listening to me.”

Riz picks up on an undercurrent of desperation in the labrador’s voice as he speaks, and the bear takes a deep breath before stepping forward and kneeling down in front of the curtain. “Legoshi? I’m going to look through this curtain in a few seconds, so you better be okay with how you look,” he says with a firm tone, emulating his own father when he refused to get out bed. After waiting a few seconds, Riz pushes his head between the curtains.

Legoshi faces the wall with his back to Riz, and the bear can see the mass of bandages across his body. The wolf doesn’t say anything, but Riz can tell he’s awake by the muffled sound of clicking as he fidgets with his claws under the covers.

“You need to have some breakfast with your friends, Legoshi,” Riz says, still with that light but firm tone.

“Not hungry,” Legoshi mutters in a voice so totally bereft of happiness that Riz has to stop himself from grabbing the other carnivore into a tight hug.

“Okay, well you don’t have to eat anything, but you do need to get out of bed,” Riz reasons. “You need to get those bandages changed at the very least.”

“Not the nurse,” Legoshi whines, curling in on himself in panic. The clicking stops, but that doesn’t comfort Riz in the slightest as the memory of what the wolf did on the rooftop flashes through his mind.

“It doesn’t have to be the nurse, it can just be me and Jack. Now I’m going to get you some pants and underwear, and then I’ll help you get out of bed,” Riz says. “If we get to the cafeteria in time for breakfast, I’ll give you a scratch behind your ears,” he adds with a chuckle, trying anything to get Legoshi to come out.

“You will?”

“Yeah, but you have to come on out on your own.”

“Fine.”

Riz pulls his head out from the bunk and stands up with an exhale. Jack already has a pair of pants and a shirt in his hands, which he hands through the curtain and goes to sit down heavily on the seat by the window. Riz sits beside him wordlessly as the rest of the dorm start going about anything they can do to look busy. He absent mindedly rubs Jack’s back as the other carnivores move around the room. When Legoshi leaves his bunk without his shirt on, the wolf’s eyes stay fixed on the floor as he sits in front of Riz.

“I’m kind of terrible at first aid,” Riz admits, looking at Jack. “Can you help?”

The labrador nods, looking happy just to see Legoshi willingly out of his bunk. As he goes to fetch the first aid kit from the night before, Riz starts to unwind the bandages still on Legoshi’s body, stopping only for a moment once they come off and suppressing a gasp. Under the blood-stained wound pads are not scabs like Riz expected. Instead, still soft and lacking any lustre that they might have when they fully develop, are lines and dots of light green scales. They’re incredibly well developed for only having been healing for a single night, but they still look like they could easily be damaged. Riz looks up as Jack comes back and sits down by his side, trying to convey with eye contact alone that the labrador should act natural.

“How does it look?” Legoshi asks.

“It’s healing really well,” Riz replies before Jack can say anything, nudging the smaller carnivore slightly. 

“Yeah! You’re a tough guy,” Jack says as he quickly covers the growing scales before the rest of the room can see them. “They don’t look too deep, but I’d still be careful about carrying anything heavy with that arm for a while, okay buddy?”

As Legoshi nods mournfully, Riz looks up and directly into the watchful eyes of the fennec fox on the opposite side of the room. Something about that hard stare makes Riz feel like the tiny carnivore already knows his every dirty secret, or is going to find them out.

“I can just get Riz to carry things for me,” Legoshi jokes weakly, pulling Riz out of the piercing gaze.

“That’s the spirit!” Jack laughs, and for a moment, things feel a little less tense.

After Legoshi pulls the rest of his uniform on, he stands awkwardly to face the rest of the room. “Sorry about this morning guys, I’m trying not to put myself down, but I still made things more difficult than it had to be. I’m not doing that well lately, and last night was…a lot.”

“It’s okay, we’re here for you,” Miguno says.

“Yeah, but I want to be there for you guys too,” Legoshi replies, still looking at the floor.

Miguno steps up to the wolf, and Riz can feel the rest of the room holding their breath. The hyena puts a hand on Legoshi’s shoulder and stares hazard up at him. “You can be there for me by coming to get breakfast with us, and buying me an extra portion, like right now,” he says with an obvious smile. “You cannot believe how bad I’ve still got the munchies.”

Legoshi looks up with a smile. “Alright, stoner.”

“You know it.”

~~ Tem ~~

The cafeteria bustles with its usual activity, and Tem pays it little to no attention, choosing instead to poke at his meal tray every now and then. He looks at his phone for the tenth time this morning, still seeing no reply to his messages to Riz and Legoshi. He figures that Legoshi is a late riser with how deeply he slept on the rooftop, but this is getting ridiculous. ‘I’m waiting to have lunch with a bunch of carnivores only a week after my roommate was devoured, and I can already feel people’s eyes on me. Why do I have to keep making things so complicated? ’

Sitting conspicuously by himself, Tem pointedly ignores every look cast his way, mostly from herbivores. They vary from sympathy, to pity, to sneering. Quite a few of the looks of the last category are from herbivores that Tem has previously argued with over being friends with carnivores, and they’re the ones that cut the deepest. ‘How could you use someone getting devoured as a gotcha? ’ He thinks, scowling back at one he recognises.

His head turns to see both Riz and Legoshi walking into the cafeteria together with a bunch of other canines, and one hyena. The alpaca’s mood immediately lifts at the sight, and he can feel a smile play across his features. Although he’s been avoiding them since the night on the rooftop, Tem can’t deny that it’s been making him feel worse. Every time he hangs out with his other friends, or even in the peaceful garden with Haru, he keeps thinking back to those two large carnivores. He waits a little longer until the group is settled in their seats, and then approaches with his own tray.

“Hey there! Mind if I join you?” Tem asks. As soon as he pipes up, the entire table goes quiet, although both Riz and Legoshi were already looking at him. ‘I know this is ballsy, and I’m kind of being a bit of an asshole right now by waltzing back in after ignoring them, but I have to do this. I have to fix whatever I’ve done to make this weird thing between us.'

“Uh, yeah,” Riz replies, and shuffles along on the large semi-circular seat slightly to accommodate the added person. He pats the newly empty space beside him and smiles. Sitting down with his meal tray down on the table, Tem looks around at the table

“I’m Tem, by the way! I wanted to come check in on Legoshi and Riz since it’s the night of the play in a few weeks. Are you all Legoshi’s roommates?” His cheerful voice and friendly attitude breaks the tension at the table, although Tem notices that the hyena never actually stopped eating his breakfast. ‘Why is he in the canine room? It’s probably something he gets asked a lot, whatever.’

“It’s good to meet you finally! Legoshi’s told me a lot about you!” A golden labrador says enthusiastically and puts out a hand across the table for him to shake. As Tem leans in an effort to return the handshake, the second part of Jack’s sentence repeats itself in his head again.

“Tells you a lot about me, ey?” Tem asks with a mischievous grin. “Nothing too good I hope! You must be Jack? I’ve heard about you too!”

“From what Legoshi says, you don’t have a single flaw,” grumbles the fennec fox that Tem identifies as Voss from Legoshi’s description.

“It’s really good to meet another of Legoshi’s friends!” The hyena says, almost cutting the end off the smaller carnivore’s sentence. “He doesn’t really have many, so it’s always cool to put your name to your name! I mean face. Your name to your face,” he trails off into a silence that gets quickly filled with giggling from most of the room 701 inhabitants. Even Riz smothers an amused chuckle.

Although the misspeaking is funny, Tem can’t help but feel his chest ache a little at the admission that this table probably makes up the entirety of Legoshi’s close friends. “Well, what were you talking about before I got here?” Tem asks.

“Durham and Voss were arguing about the new film adaptation of that anime, Alita: Battle Angelfish, and the rest of us were spectating,” a sheepdog almost as tall as Legoshi explains. “It’s kind of a regular pastime for us in the morning, a new argument every day. Durham doesn’t like the movie.”

“Ah, you’re a ‘the manga was better’ guy, right?” Tem asks the coyote.

“Well yeah! Got a problem with that?” Durham asks forcefully, surprising Tem with his passion. When he has to stop himself from baring his fangs at the herbivore, Tem can see Legoshi’s fingers curl into claws automatically.

“Don’t be mean, puppy,” the hyena says, sticking his tongue out at the other carnivore.

“Hey, I’m the same, live action just sucks every time,” Tem says, only momentarily derailed by the hyena’s words.

“Thank you!” Durham says, looking pointedly at Voss.

As the argument starts up again between the two carnivores and the others settle in for their morning entertainment, Tem turns to Riz and Legoshi and lowers his voice so he can’t be hear over the bickering. “Hey, I know I haven’t replied in a while, but I still want to be friends and see both of you around for lunch some time, even if we aren’t in Drama club together anymore.”

The large carnivores share a look before turning back to Tem and smiling.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” Riz says.

“Sure,” Legoshi says almost at the same time. “How are you going?” He adds with that genuine tone of concern and kindness that Tem has always associated with the wolf.

“I’m okay, not all of my room mates have moved back in yet, but things are starting to get to some kind of normal again,” Tem answers with a little deflation of cheerfulness. “I’m totally gonna bomb my physics class, I just don’t understand mechanics!”

“Oh, I can help with that,” Riz offers, patting Tem on the shoulder with a surprising familiarity before realising what he is doing. “Ah, shit, sorry about that, been hanging out with Legoshi too much I guess, the canine sense of affection is rubbing off on me.”

“It’s okay, good, even,” Tem says quickly. “Noone’s done that since I was a kid, it’s nice. Anyway, I would be more than happy to get your help with it.”

As they talk and join in on the conversation with the rest of the table, Tem notices that everyone’s meal trays are getting steadily emptier with the passing of time, except for Legoshi’s. The wolf keeps picking absentmindedly at the tray and eating miniscule amounts. “You need to eat up, wolf, you need to fuel up that bod’ of yours for the day!” Tem says, trying to use his enthusiasm to jump-start Legoshi’s appetite.

“Nothing really tastes that good,” Legoshi mumbles, and the entire table goes quiet. Tem can tell that there is something more going on that he doesn’t know about, and the alpaca scans the faces of the carnivores present. He sees Jack and Voss exchange a glance, anxious on the former’s face and an ‘I told you so’ look on the latter’s. “It’s not like I’m trying to starve myself,” Legoshi clarifies to the rest of the table, spiking Tem’s worry even higher. “It’s just that things are kind of bland.”

“Well, I’ve got some lemon juice to put on my salad, have some of that!” Tem offers, putting the small lemon-shaped plastic tube in front of Legoshi. The wolf picks it up and gingerly sniffs it. His eyes widen, and he drizzles a very generous amount on his food before digging in appreciatively. 

“Thanks!” He says between mouthfuls, oblivious of the horrified looks of his roommates.

“Bro, that is fucking disgusting,” the one Tem learned is called Collot says, wrinkling his nose. “Lemon juice? I have never even met a canine that can stomach that stuff, You’re one hundred percent going to puke later.”

“Yeah, it’s so sour! How do you even like that?” Durham asks, more shocked than perturbed.

“I don’t know, it tastes good,” Legoshi says with a shrug. “It tastes like…” He stops speaking and eating, emotions so subtle flashing across his features that Tem can’t understand them. Before he can say anything though, a shout of anger rings out through the cafeteria.

“HEY! You just stood on my tail, and you KNEW it was there!”

“Ah shut up, it’s not that big of a deal!”

“NO, it IS a big deal you asshole!”

Two carnivores, a fox and a wolverine, are yelling at each other and getting closer and closer to each other. As the tension rises, Tem can feel his heart start to tighten in his chest and his breathing getting faster. Without thinking, he grabs Riz’s arm and shuffles closer to the bear. When the wolverine starts to bite the fox and a round of screams ring out from other students, Tem’s ears flatten in rising panic. As he tears his eyes away from the altercation, all Tem can think about is the empty bed in his room that noone wants to acknowledge. He meets Legoshi’s gaze, and looks of surprise, sympathy, worry, and anger go over the wolf’s countenance in a few seconds. With a look between Tem and the fighting carnivores, Legoshi leaps to his feet, straightening his back and standing at his full terrifying height.

“STOP IT,” he yells, silencing the entire room with his barking voice. As everyone’s eyes turn to him, Legoshi does not cower like Tem expects, but instead takes a step forward with his tail straight out behind him and ears pointed all the way forward.

“What did you say?” The fox asks, shaking off the shocked wolverine and walking towards Legoshi. Tem doesn’t miss how the wolf takes another step to be in between him and the smaller carnivore. Riz silently brings his arm around to pull Tem closer to him, and the panic immediately feels more manageable. He feels strangely safe being effectively trapped between two of the largest carnivores he’s ever been around. “You think you can take me on just because you’re a large breed?” The fox adds, baring his teeth.

“Legoshi, what are you doing!” Jack half-whispers urgently, but the wolf ignores him, his eyes narrowing and intentionally using his height to loom over the smaller carnivore in aggressive silence.

“Nothing else to say, huh? Just lean down and I can end this with one bite you grass-fucker.”

At those words, Tem sees the fox leer at him in Riz’s arms, and the vision of a snarling predator makes his back closer into the bear’s shirt and a whimper to involuntarily escape his lips.

As soon as the whimper reaches Legoshi’s ears, one clawed hand shoots out and grabs the fox by the front of his uniform, easily lifting him up to his eye-height to Tem’s shock and awe. As he lifts the smaller carnivore, Legoshi’s lips curl back and he lets out a hissing growl unlike anything Tem has ever heard. The sound makes the fox instantly lose all his will to fight, and he starts to struggle to get Legoshi to let go of him. A tiny droplet of pale liquid slips from Legoshi’s mouth, and Tem’s pretty sure he’s the only one who notices it. It sizzles slightly when it hits the ground. As Legoshi bares more and more of his teeth, Tem can feel Riz begin to tense, as if to get ready to tackle the wolf to the ground.

“Well well, carnivores fighting and trying to prove themselves bigger than each other, what a surprise.” The voice comes from one side of the room, and several of the watching spectating students shout out in glee and adoration as Louis walks through the quickly parting crowd. As if broken from whatever strange spell that possessed him, Legoshi stops snarling and drops the fox suddenly, who falls hard on his arse, and returns to his usual stoop and looking incredibly alarmed at what he did. “You know, it’s illegal in some places for carnivores to bare their fangs in front of herbivores, it’s fortunate for you that at least one of your trophic group had the sense to stop you doing something worse,” Louis says, walking forward to stand slightly in front of Legoshi.

Tem watches the scene unfold with a raging whirlwind of emotions inside him. There’s the fear, of course, a now constant companion whenever a carnivore shows aggression since the devouring. It wraps itself around his spine and legs, telling him to run in any direction away from here, trying to force his legs to kick back at Riz and escape. However, blanketed around the fear without worrying about its thorns, is a sense of protection that Tem has never experienced until now. Legoshi just displayed all the terrifying power and viciousness that the alpaca has been taught throughout his life is inherent to all carnivores, despite him never showing anything similar before. Tem can hear his father’s voice telling him that he’s throwing his life away associating with dangerous predators, and yet, none of that aggression has been directed towards Tem. On the contrary, it seems to have been triggered in an effort to scare away the thing that was causing Tem’s distress. 

The idea of that rage being unleashed just for him makes Tem want to hug Legoshi close, just like how Riz is holding him now, and do anything to express his gratitude. A strange heat begins to flush through Tem’s cheeks and pool in his stomach, and when Riz’s fur brushes against Tem’s cheek unexpectedly, a tingle of electricity runs through his body. ‘Mm, that fur is so soft,’ Tem thinks, mind sluggish as it traverses through the inner tumult. ‘Riz’s hands are so strong and large. I wonder what he looks like when his fangs are bared, I bet he could tear that fox apart.’ Tem looks down at Riz’s hand as Louis continues talking to the smaller carnivore and imagines them with his claws out. As things begin to calm down and Louis walks away, Tem takes note of his own thoughts, and realises something extremely important. ‘Do I…like this?!’

“Are you okay, Tem?” Legoshi asks, finally sitting back down in his seat and watching him with a look of concern.

“What!” Tem yelps in response, prompting Riz to immediately pull his arms back for fear of what that sound might mean. “Yeah, I’m fine! Just a bit spooked, I guess,” Tem continues, trying to hide his former reaction. As the alpaca speaks, Legoshi looks away and tugs his ear down slightly in a gesture that Tem hasn’t seen before. ‘Is that what he does when he’s embarrassed? ’

“Yeah, sorry, I don’t really know what came over me,” the wolf apologises shyly. “I’ve been feeling really weird today, I thought those carnivores fighting was upsetting you, and it just came out.” While he mumbles, a small dribble of the strange liquid from before seeps from his lips and begins to collect under Legoshi’s chin. It blends in so well with his fur that Tem is pretty sure he’s the only one who’s seen it.

“No dude, don’t apologise!” Collot gasps. “That was fucking badass! You looked so ready to throw down!”

“Yeah, Legoshi!” Miguno agrees enthusiastically. “That was scary as fuck! But in a good way because you’re our friend!”

“Are you okay, Legoshi?” Riz interrupts the elation with a strangely urgent tone. “Looks like you’ve got something there.” Tem watches as the bear opens his eyes slightly wider to convey some not-so-subtle message to Legoshi and points to the underside of his chin. In turn, Legoshi quickly wipes the bottom of his muzzle with his hand, catching the droplet before it turns into a trickle.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Legoshi says quickly. “I guess I feel okay. It was a bit of a rough night last night.”

Once again, a moment of tension passes over all the carnivores at the table that Tem isn’t privy to the meaning of. And once again, Jack and Voss both share the same anxious and knowing looks between each other.

“Oh,” Tem says, not sure how to respond given the heavy atmosphere. “It kind of seems like everyone else knows what happened, may I ask what happened?” He asks carefully, trying with everything in him show how non-mandatory this is.

“I, uh, I was helping Louis with a secret rehearsal with Zoe, and I was asked to keep watch outside, and I saw this weird guy climbing over the fence into school,” Legoshi says, tugging his ear fretfully. “I thought he might be trying to harm a herbivore or students in general, so I confronted him, and we got into a fight.”

“You fought someone on school grounds? ” Tem asks, lowering his voice so it doesn’t travel to any other table.

“Yeah, well I kind of got beaten up, but he left the school, so it was worth it.”

“Well, I mean, with the devouring and all, thank you for making the school safer,” Tem says quietly. Then, he looks hard at Legoshi and narrows his eyes. “But don’t go around thinking you’re invincible just because you’re a big carnivore! We talked about this before, you have to stop doing things that end up hurting yourself!” Tem berates with the kind of tender anger that’s used when telling someone to stop apologising so much. “Honestly, both you and Riz are the exact same, is this some carnivore thing or something?” He turns to Legoshi’s roommates, who are all watching the scene with fascination.

“I try to get him not to,” Jack replies dumbfoundedly. “He’s bad at listening.”

“Maybe you just need to bully him more, works for me,” Tem says with a grin before turning back to Legoshi and frowning again. “Now, you are going to the school nurse, it doesn’t have to be now, but it has to happen, and I’m not going to take no for an answer.”

An actual whine comes from Legoshi’s throat as the wolf lowers his head below Tem’s eye level, and the alpaca almost loses his rhythm in surprise at the act of submission. “And no puppy eyes or whatever it’s called!” He continues, only stumbling slightly over his words, and adding a pointing finger to emphasise his words. “You told me you got beaten up, and because it’s you saying that, I know for a fact that it’ll be way worse than anything you say, so you are getting help one way or another!”

Legoshi whines again, but gives up and covers his eyes with his hands. “ Fine ,’ he mutters through gritted teeth.

“Daaaaamn,” Durham breathes. “Legoshi, you just got fucking tamed, man! Maybe we really do just need to bully you!”

“Told you,” Tem says smugly. ‘Holy shit, I can’t believe that worked. What was that whine?! I mean I know that canines have different expressions but that was crazy! ’

“I’ll come with you to the nurse, if you want,” Riz offers. “I want to help out however I can.”

Legoshi parts his fingers to peek out from between them. “That actually sounds nice. Yes please.”

Chapter Text

Four days later

~~ Legoshi ~~

The city bustles with activity as Legoshi walks along the street beside Tem and Riz, animals walking to and fro their varied destinations in the rhythmic pulse of the city. Several animals look at the uncommon trio in surprise, but none of them act aggressively. Legoshi finds his hand being squeezed by Tem encouragingly as the alpaca notices his anxious demeanour, and Legoshi looks down into his pale brown eyes. ‘His wool is so light and fluffy in the sunlight,’ Legoshi thinks to himself. He smiles and lets his tail begin to wag at the contact.

“There’s that tail wagging that I love so much!” Tem says, giving a bright smile and a laugh that sound like the sweetest music to the wolf’s dancing ears. “We’re almost there! Come on!” He adds, and breaks away from the two carnivores to run ahead.

Riz laughs fondly at Tem’s enthusiasm and bumps his shoulder into Legoshi’s. “He’s always got so much energy, doesn’t he?” He says.

“He does,” Legoshi agrees, smile widening as he sees Tem jumping up and down and waving to be seen over the heads of people on the street. “How is your head feeling?” He asks the bear with concern. “It’s pretty bright out here today.”

“It’s pretty good, actually! Being around you and Tem has helped the side effects so much, I feel so lucky to have you both.” Riz’s grin softens to a gentle smile as he speaks, and he entwines his fingers with Legoshi’s in a gesture that feels both too intimate, and just right.

Legoshi says nothing, even though it surprises him. Him and Jack hold hands sometimes, and he figures that Riz is just more forward with asking for that kind of comfort. As they get closer to the chairs and table that Tem is standing beside, the alpaca looks at them with an expression that Legoshi can’t decipher. It looks a little like he’s going to explode, face going red and feet stomping on the ground rapidly. “Are you okay?” Legoshi asks.

“Yes! It’s just so fucking CUTE seeing my boyfriends hold hands!” Tem says, running forward and kissing them on the cheeks one after the other before Legoshi can react. “You two sit down and I’ll go in and get us some food. Don’t worry, I’ll get your favourites!” And with that, the herbivore ducks into the nearby cafe, leaving Legoshi standing there stunned. Hesitantly, the wolf sits down in one of the seats and looks around nervously to see if anyone is staring at them.

“Did he say boyfriends?” Legoshi asks Riz quietly, a strange feeling stealing over his body, as if he isn’t quite connected to his senses.

“Well, yeah, we’re on a date,” Riz says, eyebrows meeting in concern. “We’ve been together for months now, are you okay?”

Before Legoshi can respond, Tem comes out of the cafe and sits down in the free space between the two carnivores. “So how’s Adler going?” He asks. “The performance is in a few days, right? I put it in my diary so I can come and watch.”

“It’s actually going really well!” Riz replies. “Louis’ calmed down a bit, and things are moving smoothly. Legoshi’s lighting is phenomenal as always.”

“Of course it is!” Tem giggles happily before perking up at the sound of food being brought out to their table.

Legoshi stares at the table throughout the whole exchange, not daring to look up at anyone around him for fear of things becoming even stranger. Again, he gets the distinct feeling like he’s observing everything from some far-away place behind his eyes. A plate is set in front of him with a silver cover over it, and a gloved hand takes ahold of the handle with a theatrical pause. His skin begins to crawl and stomach fills with the leaden weight of dread as a smell peeks out from the dish. Legoshi tries to object, to stand up and walk away, but a pair of strong hands lay on his shoulders and force him to sit. He can’t see the person behind him, but they smell like a wolf of some kind with a horrible bitter tinge to their scent.

The gloved hand pulls the cover off to reveal a heart, still beating, in the middle of the plate. It pulses slightly, hot, red blood leaking out of the arteries and veins, and assailing his nose with a sweet and tangy flavour, like the pomegranate molasses that his grandpa bought one time.

“I know it’s not carnivore meat, but you already ate most of him, and I figured that mine would be good too.” Tem’s voice filters through the red fog of hunger that begins to pulse at the edges of Legoshi’s vision.

He manages to tear his eyes away from the bloody morsel to look at Tem, and a wave of panic rolls up as he sees a gaping wound across the alpaca’s stomach. Intestines and other organs fall out of him onto his lap, the bottom of the lungs hanging limp. Drool and venom fills Legoshi’s mouth, at the sight, but he clamps his hands over his muzzle and nose in an effort to drown out the glorious scent of viscera. Whipping his head to the side, he looks at the waiter and recognises the decaying visage of the dingo he ate, standing silently with glassy eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Legoshi’s own voice comes from behind him, and the hands on his shoulders dig their claws in. On the end of a neck that elongates like a snake, a wolf skull emerges into Legoshi’s field of view over his shoulder and sniffs at the still-beating heart. “Smells good to me. You wanted to eat Tem anyway, didn’t you? That rabbit was just a go between.”

Leegoshi tries to object, but drool and venom spills out of his mouth in a torrent, melting his clothes and eating away at his chair and the ground below. Drowning in his own instincts, the hybrid hears distantly the sound of concrete breaking apart. Suddenly, the ground gives way below him, and he falls down into a dark and endless hole.

Legoshi opens his eyes and throws off his covers with a start, almost falling out of his bunk in his effort to run from the nightmare. It’s dark, and everyone in his room seems to be asleep. Thinking back to the details of the dream, to seeing Tem’s guts everywhere, a lurching sense of nausea pulls at his stomach, and Legoshi leaps to his feet and dashes to the bathroom. Falling to his knees at the toilet, he barely gets the lid up before he begins to puke blood and gore into the bowl, some bits of half-digested meat not making the target and slipping onto the floor.

“Legoshi? Legoshi!” Jack’s voice comes from outside the door. “Legoshi! I’m coming in!”

Not able to hide the mess, Legoshi backs away and curls up so at least he doesn’t have to see his best friend’s expression when he comes in. The door handle twists, and the hinges creak as it opens.

“LEGOSHI.”

Deja vu tips its bucket of ice over Legoshi’s face as he opens his eyes for a second time, only to find himself still in bed. Over him is Jack’s worried face as the labrador violently shakes him awake. “Oh thank Rex, you’re awake, are you okay?! You were growling and moaning, and– are you drooling?”

Legoshi jerks back from Jack, pushing himself into the walls and breathing hard from the nightmare. He swallows hard, venom and saliva easily slipping down his throat.

“Is he okay?” Collot says from somewhere Legoshi can’t see. “And what’s that gross smell? Did he finally puke up the lemons he’s been eating?”

The sheepdog’s words make Legoshi’s nose twitch in annoyance. ‘It’s not like I want to not be able to taste anything else, or be constantly making venom when I get hungry or angry.’

“Shut the fuck up, Collot,” Voss says angrily, as if reading Legoshi’s mind. “He’s just had a nightmare.”

“Whoa, okay, sorry I guess,” Collot replies with a wounded tone. “No need to be so harsh.”

‘Shit, I probably woke everyone up, I need to do something,’ Legoshi thinks desperately, trying to purge his brain of the images that assail it. “Sorry guys, I just had a really bad dream, but I’m awake, I’m okay now,” he tries to reassure his roommates, but avoids Jack’s searching gaze while he does. “Sorry I woke you up,” he adds.

“Woke us up?” Miguno’s head pokes in between the curtains above Jack’s. “It’s morning already, bro! We were letting you sleep in a bit before going to breakfast, but you started growling and moaning and stuff, you alright?” His nose wrinkles in a look of distaste. “Man, you gotta take a shower or something if you aren’t gonna stop eating citrus, Collot’s right, it stinks. Oh also, probably put some clothes on, ey? Not a good look to walk to the shower with your cock out.” The hyena pokes his tongue out mischievously before retracting his head.

The comment on the smell would make Legoshi annoyed enough to growl, but the rising tide of anger is dashed on the impenetrable cliff faces of embarrassment as Legoshi realises that he’s still completely naked after sleeping. Jack’s eyes widen as the realisation hits him as well, and his face immediately disappears, shutting the curtains behind him.

“Jack, are you blushing?” Collot asks teasingly. “It’s not like we haven’t all been in the dorm showers together. What, scared your baby best friend is all grown up?”

“Shut up!” Jack replies.

“Please tell me he was at least wearing underpants when you slept in the same bunk,” Voss says to a chorus of sniggers from Collot and Durham.

Legoshi shakes his head at the curtains and pulls on enough clothes to be able to emerge from his bunk and not prompt any more comments. Once he brushes his teeth and rinses his mouth out, the smell of venom is mostly gone. Emerging from the bathroom to see his roommates getting ready to leave, the hybrid goes to find the small bottle of lemon juice from his bunk that he’s been taking to the cafeteria, but stops when Jack grabs his wrist.

“Oh no, no, no,” the labrador says determinedly. “You are coming to see the nurse right now with me and Riz. I’ve already messaged him, so don’t even think about trying to run away.”

“Jack, I’m fine, I just want to get breakfast,” Legoshi says with a frown.

“You may want to get breakfast, but you are definitely not ‘fine’.” Jack uses his free hand to mime quotation marks around the word. “You’ve been avoiding it for almost a week, and no more!” The tone of voice Jack uses is distinctly similar to the one used by Tem only a few days ago, and part of Legoshi instantly wants to obey, pulling his hand away from the juice bottle meekly. The other half deepens his frown and curses how easily his friends can boss him around, even if it’s for his own good. ‘But what if they suspect me for the Devouring? ’ He thinks to himself, pulling slightly at his ear in worry. ‘I’ll just have to try to use my fight story and lie. Oh Rex, I’m so bad at lying though, I’m so fucked.’

“If you come now, I’ll get you another packet of those sour gummies you’ve been enjoying so much lately,” Jack says with an encouraging tone. Legoshi’s ears perk up and his tail wags in a betrayal of his emotions. 

The sour candy has been the one thing getting him through the past few days and keeping his growing cravings at bay, and considering how bad the latest nightmare was, it’s probably a good idea to stock up. “Fine,” Legoshi says, ignoring both the little jump and squeal of victory Jack does, and the rest of his roommates sniggering once again.

As they meet up with Riz, the three of them wander in silence down to the infirmary, a tense atmosphere settling over the three carnivores. As they get closer to the doors, Legoshi’s strides get smaller and smaller until both Riz and Jack have to stop a few steps ahead of him. When they look back at the hybrid, he slouches even further than usual, attempting to shrink in on himself until he disappears.

“Come on,” Riz says gently, holding out a hand. “We’ll be right there with you.”

“But what if they–” Legoshi stops himself, glancing nervously between Riz and Jack. “What if they think I devoured Duncan?” He says in a hushed voice. “I’m a large breed carnivore covered in bite and claw marks coming into the infirmary only a few weeks after it happened, they’ll know– well, they’ll think it was me!”

Jack steps forward and takes Legoshi’s hand in his once more, looking up with those big worried eyes of his. “Did you?” He asks quietly.

Legoshi’s instinct is to recoil from the labrador, to panic and run away. He didn’t devour Duncan, but that doesn’t mean it’s that far from the truth. What stops him doing so, however, is the distinct lack of judgement in Jack’s expression. When Legoshi looks into his eyes, he can only see the bottomless well of patience and concern that he seems to have for the hybrid. “No, I didn’t,” Legoshi whispers, choking on the confession that wants to crawl its way out of his stomach and tear open his throat on the way.

“Well then that’s okay.” Jack smiles and tugs him along. As they catch up to Riz, Legoshi wordlessly takes his hand as well, and feels a comforting squeeze from the bear.

They walk through the doors and into the infirmary, a little buzz playing as they do that Legoshi didn’t notice the last time he was here. When they do, the blessedly sterile smell washes over him, and he breathes out a sigh of relaxation. Any blood from here is quickly and efficiently scrubbed away, and there’s nothing that can trigger his instincts.

“Just a wee moo’!” A familiar voice calls out from behind a curtain seconds before the large and comforting figure of Nurse Barclay rounds the corner. “Oh! It’s you, Legoshi was it? And you’ve brought a new friend this time! What seems to be the problem this time?”

Legoshi lets go of Riz and Jack’s hands, wondering for a moment if he should ask for a carnivore nurse instead. “Aren’t you on night shift?” Is what ends up coming out of his mouth.

“You’ll be my final patient before shift change, now come on over to the bed, I’m sure you remember the way,” the highland cow says with a smile, ushering the trio into the infirmary proper, which seems to be empty. “What brings you here so early in the morning?” She asks as Legoshi sits up on the bed with Jack and Riz standing beside him. “Is it related to what we discussed last time?” Her eyes stay focused on Legoshi, and her friendly expression doesn’t change, but he can feel the implication of her words.

“Kind of,” he says, nodding slightly. “They both know I’m a hybrid,” he adds, and a more genuine smile passes over the nurse’s countenance.

“I’m so glad you’ve talked to some of your friends about it. Have you lost any more teeth?” The nurse takes out a notepad and pen to take some notes.

“Yeah, I think most of them on the right side of my mouth have fallen out, but they’re all being replaced easily. They’ve got this orange tinge on them though, no matter how much I brush my teeth. Is that okay?” Legoshi asks, knowing he is avoiding the inevitable but delaying all the same.

“Ah! Funny you should say that, I did some reading on komodo dragon health after our last chat, and I found out that your teeth are actually lined with iron to make it easier to tear things with them, fancy that!” Nurse Barclay says with an enthusiastic smile that disarms the assembled carnivores’ shock at how she talks about the predatory functions of carnivore anatomy. “Oh, dinnae look at me like that! Biology is biology, regardless of what you do with it,” she scoffs. “Is that it?”

“No,” Legoshi shakes his head. “I’ve started producing venom, too. It’s not all the time, only when I’m really angry, or when I have nightmares.”

The nurse’s brow furrows, and some of her enthusiasm abates slightly. “Ah, now that is an issue. I can get our doctor to prescribe you some anti-venom tablets that you chew, which should work for a few hours after taking, but you have to understand that comes with certain caveats.”

“Like what?” Jack asks.

“Well, if you are classed as venomous, there can be unintended side-effects. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about how nasty people can be about venomous animals, Legoshi, but I’m afraid to say that it can extend to medical professionals, despite how we are trained to act.” Nurse Barclay’s expression darkens as she speaks, as if recalling specific people.

“So what can he do instead of being prescribed?” Riz asks, putting a hand on Legoshi’s shoulder.

“Well, I have a packet or two laying around that wouldn’t go amiss, but it’s not a long-term solution,” the highland cow says, looking at Legoshi seriously. “I know you said that you don’t talk with your grandad, but I really recommend you try to reach out to maybe some extended family. I’m sure that komodo dragons have their own solutions for these things, as these chewable tablets have only really become available in the past few years.”

“I guess,” Legoshi sighs. 

After a moment of silence between them all, Riz’s hand squeezes Legoshi’s shoulder, and he looks at him expectantly. In response, the hybrid begrudgingly begins to unbutton his shirt and pull it off of him, revealing the old bandages still hugging his fur. The smell of stale sweat emanates from them, and Legoshi wrinkles his nose at the scent. “I got in a fight,” he mumbles, not looking at the nurse as he turns around on the bed so she can see the extent of his injuries.

“My goodness! Must have been quite a fight!” The highland cow says as she immediately opens a drawer and removes gloves and a fresh set of bandages. Legoshi can hear her step forward and begin to peel away the bandages, dropping them into a bin and then working to remove the wound pads still hanging onto his fur. As she does, her breathing slows, and her hands stop for a moment. “These wounds are clearly not fresh, when did you get them?”

“Almost a week ago,” Legoshi replies. “I was out past curfew for a rehearsal, and I saw someone chasing a student, and we got into a fight,” he says the words as naturally as possible, repeating the excuse he’s been thinking of since Jack announced this visit.

“These look like canine bite marks, and you didn’t report this to the school?”

Legoshi shakes his head and slouches miserably. “I didn’t want people to think that I was the Devourer,” he mumbles.

“Ah.” Nurse Barclay takes a deep breath as she thinks about what to say. “I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that you didn’t report it, regardless of how you think the school might feel. That person might still be chasing students, they may have been the one who committed that terrible act.”

Legoshi curls in on himself under the judgemental tone, but stops in surprise as Jack almost shouts at the nurse.

“Hey! Don’t talk to him like that!” The labrador says angrily. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a carnivore after something like that happens! Everyone suspects you even if you breath wrong in the direction of a herbivore! It might not have been the best decision, but don’t you dare judge Legoshi for that! Besides, if Legoshi beat him up, I doubt he’ll try come here again!”

The nurse stays silent during the dog’s rant, and she lets the quiet moment stretch on for slightly longer than is comfortable. Even Jack’s indignant energy begins to abate as he realises he just shouted at a member of staff.

“I apologise for my ignorance,” Nurse Barclay says, surprising both Legoshi and Jack. “You’re right, I don’t know what it’s like. I’d still like you to report it, but I suppose you don’t have to say anything that casts suspicion on you.”

“That’s…fair,” Jack says begrudgingly.

“What I would like to come back to though, is that these scales are not being looked after properly,” the nurse says, returning to the matter at hand with a practical tone. “They need air as well as moisture to properly come through and shed, and these bandages have left them too soft, and you're risking a skin infection.”

Legoshi’s ears prick up at the words, and his brows furrow in confusion. “Scales?” He asks. “What scales?”

“These scales that have come through on your wounds, lad, have you not been taking care of these bandages?” the highland cow asks.

“No,” Legoshi says in a small voice. “Jack and Riz changed them last.”

The words hang in the air and turn the atmosphere into a tense fog. Legoshi says nothing, not knowing how to deal with the rising turmoil of emotions within him, and the other carnivores don’t offer anything in return. ‘Scales. I have scales now. Just like mom. Am I going to turn out like her? Am I going to…’ Legoshi’s thoughts move slowly, trying to be heard past the feeling of hurt and betrayal bubbling up. “How long have you two known?” He asks, unable to stop the slight growl that borders his words.

“I can see that this is a private conversation,” Nurse Barclay interjects smoothly. “I’ll put together a wee bag for you with the tablets and some information I found on scale care the other day and leave you to talk. If another student comes in needing the bed, though, I’ll have to give it to them.” She steps smartly away and closes the curtain around the bed to provide a bit of privacy to the trio.

After she leaves, an oppressive silence falls over all three carnivores.Usually, Legoshi would feel awkward and uncomfortable by causing such an atmosphere because he only rarely understands why people think he’s weird. Now, however, with the constant nightmares and hunger he tries to drown with a fake taste of what it craves, Legoshi’s anger begins to roll up its sleeves. “Jack? Riz?” He asks in the same slight growl. “How long have you both known?”

“Since we changed your bandages the first time,” Riz replies quietly.

“And why didn’t you tell me?” Legoshi’s voice lilts with desperation, briefly overpowering the anger behind the betrayal.

“I thought–” Riz begins.

“I didn’t want you to have the same thoughts as your mom did!” Jack blurts out, interrupting the bear. “I know what started happening to your mom, and how she got so depressed when she started getting scales that she killed herself!”

The words hang in the air like tripwires, each one rigged to a different set of emotional landmines. Legoshi, not having much social acrobatics at the best of times, is left completely off guard and frozen. He feels like any movement he makes, backwards or forward, is going to set off a chain reaction.

“She what?” Riz asks with a shocked tone of voice. “Wait, nevermind, you don’t have to explain.”

“I thought you knew!” Jack says in alarm. “Rex, Legoshi, I swear I didn’t mean to reveal that.”

“Both of you, shut up.” Legoshi says. He’s not growling anymore, but the hostility has been transformed into an exhaustion just as callous. “I’m not going to kill myself because of this, Jack. I’m just upset that you’ve been lying to me. I deserve to know what’s happening to my own body.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I wanted to wait until you were feeling a bit better, mentally I mean,” Jack apologises, walking around the bed to stand a few metres from Legoshi’s side. “I wanted you to have a break! A break from all the bad stuff that’s been happening in your life.”

“How am I supposed to trust you, if you hide something like that from me?” Legoshi asks bitterly.

Instead of silencing Jack, however, the labrador breathes deeply as if he's winding up some huge internal spring. “How are you supposed to trust me?!” Jack asks angrily. “How am I supposed to trust you if you never tell me anything that happens!”

Legoshi turns his head to look at his best friend. A deep aching tiredness has begun to set into his limbs, making his bones feel like they’ve been turned to lead. The feeling is familiar, although it’s been a long time since it’s been this bad. Each movement pushes fresh air over his new scales and reminds him of the awful fate that seems inevitable in the back of his mind. In the tears streaming down Jack’s face, Legoshi can see the streetlights that reflected off of his grandfather’s scales the day before his mother died. 

They had been sitting on a park bench one evening, as they couldn’t go during the day for fear of people harassing or calling the police on Gosha for playing with a wolf cub they assumed wasn’t related to him. The komodo had told him that he could tell him if he was sad, or if he ever felt bad. Legoshi had nodded at the time, but all he could think about was how much Gosha was already doing to put food on the table and raise him when Leano wouldn’t leave her bedroom. Legoshi couldn’t talk about his own sadness or how it was crushing him from the inside when his grandfather was carrying so heavy a burden.

“I can’t talk about it,” Legoshi says, voice somewhere between a choke and a whisper as the sound of cracking ribs and tearing flesh echoes in his mind. “You don’t deserve someone like me as a friend.”

“What do you mean Lego!?” Jack steps forward and grabs the hybrid’s shoulders. “I don’t deserve someone who looked out for me when we were growing up because he was bigger and stronger than me? Who shares facts about what he loves with me? Who used to cuddle with me when my parents would fight?”

With each sentence, Legoshi’s defences crack a little further, but he still can’t make himself say the words, to confess his monstrosity to his best friend. Filling with shame, he turns his muzzle away from the labrador and looks away.

“I know that something’s happened to you, Legoshi!” Jack says in a hoarse whisper, voice cracking slightly, but trying to stay quiet enough that the nurse can’t overhear them. “I know that you did something, and that something’s changed apart from just your body. You have nightmares every night, you drool and you growl, and you kick around like you’re chasing something. You don’t have to tell me exactly what happened, but I know it’s more than just getting into a fight. Just please, for once since the funeral, please stop pushing me away!”

Legoshi stays quiet, the dripping of tears onto his fur the only sensation he can focus on. On his other side, he can feel the bed creak as Riz sits down and puts his hand on Legoshi’s back, once again rubbing circles between his shoulders. ‘If I say something, I could lose Jack forever,’ he thinks to himself. ‘But if I don’t, we’ll never be close again. When I think of that, it feels like I can’t breathe. I need to tell him.’

The hybrid takes a deep breath and rests his forehead on Jack’s shoulder so he doesn’t have to look at his face. “The person I fought was a dingo,” he begins shakily, staying as quiet as possible. “I got the scent of a herbivore when I was keeping watch, and something flicked in my head, and I chased her.” Jack’s body stiffens as Legoshi speaks, but not nearly as much as the hybrid expected. “I didn’t eat her or even mean to hurt her, but when she ran, this dingo started chasing her as well, and I felt like I couldn’t let him…” Legoshi stops, the memory of that night replaying in his head.

“You couldn’t let him hurt the herbivore?” Jack asks.

“Yeah,” Legoshi replies, wincing as he tells only half the truth. “When I fought the dingo, I ended up biting him, and the blood got in my mouth.” Legoshi breathes hard, and his claws dig into his palms. The sharp points begin to pierce his skin like they have done so many times before, digging into the tiny scars that have formed over years of doing so instead of through a vein and spilling blood. “I can’t stop thinking about it, it’s like this need that I can’t get rid of, I dream about eating meat every night, and I feel like a fucking monster.”

“Is that why you’ve been eating so much lemon juice?” Jack asks gently. “I looked up, and some people experiencing meat withdrawal can lose their sense of taste, but I’ve never heard of lemon juice being used, especially for a canine.”

“It’s because it makes things taste like carnivore meat,” Legoshi whispers, preparing himself for his best friend to reject him. “I’m not craving herbivore, that’s why I’ve trusted myself to be around Tem, and Riz is big enough that he could stop me if I lose it and attack a carnivore.”

“Oh,” Jack says before lapsing into silence again. One hand tentatively moves from Legoshi’s shoulder and up to his ears, where he begins to slowly pet the hybrid on the top of his head. “So those sour gummies I got are kind of like a nicotine patch for someone addicted to cigarettes?”

Legoshi's brows furrow at the labrador’s question. “I guess, yeah.”

“Then we should have a steady supply instead of getting them from vending machines every now and then,” Jack says, tone changed to the same one he uses when working out a word equation for his chemistry class. “Do you need them every now and then, or is it more of a constant hunger? We should probably get you extra strength toothpaste as well, although if your teeth are going to start falling out constantly then that might not be a problem.”

“Jack, what are you talking about?” Legoshi asks, bringing his head up to look into his best friend’s eyes.

“Addiction is a disease, Legoshi,” Jack replies seriously. “I’ve been learning about it, there’s a doctor that even specialises in meat addiction and he has lots of resources online.”

“How long have you been researching this?”

“Just a few days, and don’t worry, I’ve been using a VPN. The school’s shitty internet security isn’t going to be able to stop me from trying to help you.” The labrador speaks with a hard look on his face. “Apparently, marijuana can also be used to help with appetite and suppressing predatory urges, but I don’t really want to encourage Miguno by getting any off of him, and anyway, I don’t think you want to talk about this with the rest of the guys, right?”

Legoshi shakes his head, dumbstruck by the thoughtless love being shown to him.

“I can get you some, if you want to try,” Riz murmurs.

Jack’s eyebrows raise in surprise as he looks at the bear over Legoshi’s shoulder, but he doesn’t comment. Turning his attention back to the hybrid, the labrador’s expression softens. “Does that sound good to you?” 

“Uh, I guess? I’m willing to try anything to help the cravings go away,” Legoshi mumbles.

“Great! Then let's get out of here so we can grab breakfast before the cafeteria closes.” A little of the light returns to Jack’s countenance as he steps back and wipes his tears away from his eyes. “I think they’re serving those egg sandwiches today, your favourite!”

“I should probably talk to Nurse Barclay before we go,” Legoshi says, standing up from the bed and going to put his shirt back on. As he looks at both other carnivores, a strange flicker of something he hasn’t felt for a long time begins to flare up very slightly in his chest. It’s little more than a candle flame right now, but the meagre light it produces may as well be a wildfire against the deep well of darkness that makes up Legoshi’s inner emotions. With one movement, he pulls both Riz and Jack into a hug, ignoring the yelp of surprise that the labrador lets out. As the bear stands and returns the hug, the flame within Legoshi flares slightly brighter, and he squeezes both carnivores tightly. 

“You’re crushing me again,” Jack wheezes between them, but Legoshi still traps the smaller carnivore for a few more seconds before releasing him. “Geez, I’m going to get really hurt one of these days if you two keep doing that,” he complains, albeit with a happy smile on his face.

“Guess you’ll just have to get used to it,” Riz says with a chuckle.

“More crushing hugs? I’d hate to think what you’re like when you cuddle someone,” Jack giggles, bubbly self returning in full swing. “Now come on, Lego-face, let’s get some food.”

Chapter Text

Two days later

~~ Riz ~~

Legoshi and Jack fidget nervously as Riz sets out the jars from his bag onto the ground of the old pool, albeit in different ways. Legoshi clenches and unclenches his hands repeatedly, staring straight ahead into nothing, and Riz can tell he’s trying not to look at his claws. On the other hand, Jack stares wide-eyed at the honey and peanut butter, unable to tear his gaze away as he repeatedly licks his nose. The bear chuckles at their reactions and smiles, trying to put the two canids at their ease.

“If you don’t relax a bit, you’re just going to have a bad time,” Riz murmurs, reaching out a hand and gently closing it over one of Legoshi’s. The brooding wolf refocuses his eyes on Riz’s and deflates slightly.

“I know, I’m trying,” he says. Legoshi’s mournful tone snaps Jack out of his anxious reverie, back to the present where the labrador can help his friend.

“You can scratch my ears if you want!” Jack says enthusiastically, shuffling slightly closer to Legoshi and causing the wolf’s tail to swish hesitantly back and forth. “It usually helps calm you down if you can do something with your hands!”

Riz struggles not to chuckle at the open show of affection. He knows he shouldn’t buy into the stereotypes about canines, but it’s a hard task when faced with someone like Jack. The dog is so devoted to his packmates and making sure they’re okay, it almost makes a pang of jealousy shudder through Riz. The bear frowns briefly in an effort to banish the thought, but not in time for Legoshi to look quizzically into his eyes.

“So, I’ve got honey and peanut butter, both of them have weed oil in them, but the honey has pepper oil as well, that’s why it’s red,” Riz explains in an effort to avoid the wolf’s gaze, taking his hand back and gesturing to the jars. Jack’s brows furrow in concentration as if he’s taking notes in his Advanced Biology class. “I like both, but the honey is spicy, so keep that in mind,” the bear continues, giving Legoshi a sidelong glance. The wolf’s lack of taste has been worrying Riz, and he hopes that the pepper will jump-start something in Legoshi’s body. When he looks back, Riz sees Jack patiently sitting with one hand up waiting to speak. “Yes?”

“Why is there chilli in the honey?” Jack asks, lowering his hand for a second before raising it again excitedly. “Oh! And how long will it take for me to feel anything? Will Legoshi feel it slower because he’s bigger? How much should I have? This is so interesting!” The labrador’s tail begins to sweep up a tiny dust cloud behind him from the intensity of its wagging.

Riz chuckles again from a place deep in his large chest. “You’re getting really into this, aren’t you?”

Jack’s ears immediately droop guiltily and his tail stops wagging. “Sorry! I was nervous about it before, but now I’m thinking about how dosage works between species and metabolism, and I get carried away really easily, sorry!”

“It’s alright, you can get interested,” Riz reassures. “Just remember we’re here for Legoshi as well as having a good time.”

“Yes! Sorry Legoshi! Do you have any questions?”

The wolf shrugs in a desultory way that only deepens the worry taking hold in Riz’s chest. “I don’t know, I just hope it stops the cravings.” His voice is pitiful, and prompts a moment of silence among the trio. 

Jack takes Legoshi’s left hand in both of his and gives it a squeeze. “I know, buddy, we’re right here for you through this.”

Riz returns his hand to Legoshi’s right, resisting the urge to pull the wolf into a potentially overstimulating hug. “It’ll help, I promise.”

“You ready, big guy?” Jack asks, prompting a firm nod from the wolf. “Alright, we can all have some together, it’ll be just like when Miguno bought that weird flavour of chips for the dorm!”

A smile creeps onto Legoshi’s lips at the memory, and his tail begins to slowly wag at the memory. “They were so strange,” he murmurs. 

‘Jack knows just how to make him feel better, doesn’t he? I wish I could do that, I wish I could have that history with him. I wish he would smile like that for me,’ Riz thinks from the sidelines of the interaction. The spark of jealousy kindles slightly, but the bear once more dampens it. ‘They’ve been friends since they were pups, of course they’re close. Stop thinking about him like that, he’s not yours.’

“I think I want to try the honey, if that’s okay, Riz?” Legoshi asks shyly.

The bear nods once again and hands the wolf a spoon. Riz answers all of Jack’s previous questions while getting the other spoons out of the cloth bag, and the two canids listen with rapt attention. After some quick maths supplied by the labrador, they work out a rough dosage for each of them and swallow their respective spoonfuls. Riz sighs at the sweet and spicy flavour of the honey, and the quick relief it gives him from his background headache.

“What now?” Jack asks.

“Now we wait,” Riz replies simply.

~~ Jack ~~

“We both know Legoshi, but I don’t really know you Riz, why don’t we ask each other questions? We can make it a game, like Never Have I Ever!” Jack suggests, tail wagging at the prospect of getting to know Legoshi’s friend better. “We can all play, but we don’t have to explain our answers if we don’t want to.”

Both of the other animals nod after a glance between them, and Jack’s smile deepens into a mischievous grin. Legoshi has been a loner for so long, and Jack hasn’t ever known him to be close with other animals apart from himself, the rest of the dorm, and Tem. The fact that this bear has gotten so close in such a short amount of time is a sign that they really care for each other, even if they don’t realise it. That simple blossoming of a close friendship makes the labrador happier than he can describe.

“Alright then, let’s see how many embarrassing secrets I can get out of you,” Riz replies with a grin.

“Oh ho ho, challenge accepted! Four fingers up!” Jack declares, mentally taking note of how Legoshi smiles at the two of them getting along. “Hmm, okay then, never have I ever stolen something!” The labrador adds, triumphantly expecting Riz to have a juicy story to tell, only to gape at Legoshi’s lowering finger. “Lego! What!?” He splutters.

“Do you count stationary? I keep forgetting to return pencils and pens.”

“Pff, no, that doesn’t count.” Jack waves a hand dismissively before looking at Riz pointedly. “Your turn!”

“Alright, never have I ever been to another country,” the bear says, looking at the lack of movement in the canids. 

“Jack and I grew up just outside of the city, then came here together,” Legoshi offers with a shrug. “Never have I ever gotten drunk.”

A shock runs up Jack’s spine at the words, and he considers lying. The labrador puts on a smile and forces his tail to stay wagging like normal while keeping all his fingers up. He tries his best to stay nonchalant in the face of the other carnivores, and a wave of relief passes over him when Riz seems to buy his facade.

“Jack, are you lying?” Legoshi asks, a small smile spreading on his features.

“Whaaaat? No, of course not! Why would I lie about that?” Jack says, aware of how unconvincing he sounds. ‘ This was supposed to bring out things for other people, not me! ’ He thinks to himself, desperately trying to maintain his smile. 

“Your ears are drooping, you’re definitely lying right now,” Legoshi presses, a full grin breaking out onto his face as he reaches over and holds one of the offending appendages in his hand.

“Oh yeah, they’re not so bouncy,” Riz agrees, moving the clutter of spoons and jars so he can shuffle closer and touch the other ear, also beginning to grin as he moves it up and down.

As the two carnivores lean over Jack and play with his ears, a flush of heat travels from his chest to his face and stomach. ‘Why aren’t I moving? ’ He thinks to himself as the teasing continues. ‘I should move, but they’re having such a good time bonding, and it’s been so long since Legoshi laughed like this.’ The labrador screws up his face and grits his teeth, but he also can’t deny how good it feels to have his ears touched like this. It’s quite a standard form of affection amongst canines who are close friends, but Riz’s fingers are rougher than Legoshi’s, and the difference in texture almost has Jack’s tongue lolling out of his mouth.

"Man, you really like your ears being scratched,” Riz teases, causing Jack’s eyes to snap open in a last ditch effort to preserve what is left of his dignity.

“It’s NORMAL!” Jack barks, shaking his head to release his ears, trying to fight back the blush from his cheeks.

“You still haven’t told us when you got drunk,” Legoshi points out, subsiding a bit and sitting back on his haunches.

“It was when I was nine, my dad used to have this peanut butter whisky that he would drink in the evening, and whenever I asked him he said it was ‘medicine’.” Jack uses his fingers to quote the words, wrinkling his nose in annoyance. “So when I got a drippy nose one time, I drank a whole bunch, but then I was more sick! Mom was so mad at dad.”

All three of the carnivores laugh at the story, and a sense of companionable peace settles over them. Despite sharing an embarrassing story, Jack feels more relaxed. Putting on a mischievous grin once more, he leans forward, suddenly okay with saying more embarrassing things. “Never have I ever kissed anyone!”

Both him and Legoshi keep their fingers up, but Riz lowers one a little sheepishly. The two canids stare expectantly, tails wagging.

“It was actually last summer at a Deep Night market, behind a tree right by the street.” Jack leans closer in excitement, and he watches intently as the bear scratches the back of his neck.

“Who was she?” Legoshi asks before Jack can, surprising the labrador.

Riz seems reluctant to elaborate, but opens his mouth anyway. “He was called Bjørn, a polar bear from up north on exchange in one of the other schools.”

Jack’s mouth hangs open slightly before he notices and shuts it with an involuntary snap. Thoughts race through his head in a rush, equal parts guilty at being part of outing Riz, even unintentionally. ‘Just help him feel comfy, Jack, that’s what you’re good at! ’ The dog thinks, and smile in an attempt to alleviate the awkward atmosphere that has immediately fallen over the trio. “That’s cool! Did you get his number? Did you talk much, or was it more of a heat of the moment thing?”

“We talked a bit, but I didn’t get his number,” Riz says, smiling his thanks to Jack for breaking the ice while he speaks. “It was kind of rushed in the end.”

Jack glances at Legoshi, but hesitates upon seeing the wolf looking down at the ground with a ponderous expression. “You alright there, bud?” He asks, scratching gently at Legoshi’s ears.

“What was it like? Kissing a guy, I mean.”

Jack once again stops momentarily as the words fall out of Legoshi’s mouth in a hesitant trickle. So many aspects of Riz and Legoshi’s quick friendship fall into place; the way that the bear keeps finding excuses to give comforting touch, but also holds himself back from anything more, the looks of confirmation they give each other, communicating without needing to use words. For all his bluster around not saying to Voss what he thinks of Legoshi’s sexuality, Jack hasn’t been able to stop himself from speculating. ‘Holy moly, Riz and Legoshi could be so cute together! ’ He thinks excitedly, but an undercurrent of something solemn soon runs through him. ‘If Legoshi gets a boyfriend, then he’ll probably spend less time with me and more time with Riz, which is okay, obviously! I’ll still miss him though…’

“Uh, it was, good?” Riz says, not sure how to answer the quiet question. “I’ve tried kissing girls before, but it felt weird, like I should like it, but it just doesn’t. But kissing Bjørn felt really right . So yeah, good.”

Legoshi looks up from the ground, and Jack sees his eyes for the first time in a few minutes. The labrador stifles a gasp at the sight of the wolf’s squinting expression and the very tip of his tongue hanging out the end of his muzzle. For once, the wolf’s pinprick pupils have dilated a fair amount, but the lack of visible iris makes them look cartoonish. Jack’s gasp turns into a giggle behind one hand that he can’t seem to stop. The dog falls softly sideways as the laugh overtakes his diaphragm before finally subsiding and allowing him to uncurl. He lays flat on the ground of the pool, staring straight up at the stars in the sky. “Wow, I think I’m high!” He giggles once more.

“I’d say you are,” Jack hears Riz rumble from out of his vision. “I’d say you both are.”

“Are you?” The dog asks.

“I’m getting there, it’s only been about twenty minutes.”

“My mouth feels really dry,” Legoshi interrupts, prompting another giggle from Jack. “And I’m really hungry.”

The second part causes both other animals to pause for a tense moment. “What for, Legoshi?” Riz eventually asks.

Jack turns his head to see the wolf screwing up his face in concentration before looking up with a smile, and the unmistakable damp streak of a tear running down his fur. “Some chips, maybe? I want to try the onion ones.”

~~ Legoshi ~~

When Legoshi first sat down in the dried up pool, he was feeling an awful mix of emotions. Anxious at the prospect of doing something illegal on school grounds, stupid for getting anxious at doing drugs when he literally killed and ate someone, and a good dose of fresh self loathing for what he’s done. The justification of protecting the herbivore student he has clung to has been a life raft in the immediate aftermath, but he’s been realising more and more that his raft has a gaping hole in it. As Jack was asking all of his questions, Legoshi had curled into himself, feeling horrible for continuing to lie to his best friend.

Now, after both Jack and Riz share their secrets, embarrassing or otherwise, the atmosphere has shifted into something much more comfortable. Legoshi can feel a strange tingling run up his body, like his fur was gently being pulled back from his skull and arms towards his spine. The sensation is slightly alarming, and the hybrid can feel his heartbeat speed up in his chest.

“–It was kind of rushed in the end.”

Legoshi frowns in concentration as he replays the last half a minute of conversation in his mind, and then breathes in sharply at the realisation of what Riz confessed to. ‘Wait, Riz is gay? Is that allowed? Can you do that? Of course you can do that, it’s not illegal or something. Agh, why is it so hard to concentrate? ’ His thoughts try to race, but they’re slowed down by the honey, which is why he can’t stop himself from asking the next question in time.

“What was it like? Kissing a guy, I mean.” Legoshi almost clutches his muzzle as the question slips out, and he focuses on a tiny speck of grime on the tiled floor. His heart flutters, but he isn’t sure if it’s caused by the answer Riz is giving in return, or just the weed. Despite the cool night air, he feels hot under his collar, and his mouth is incredibly dry. 

“My mouth feels really dry,” he interrupts whatever conversation is happening. “And I’m really hungry.” The words feel hot and dangerous, as if they’re licks of flame in a firework factory. Legoshi is hyper-aware of Jack’s well meaning but worried expression, and Riz’s more empathetic tone in his question. As he thinks about his answer, however, the hybrid realises something. He can’t taste any bitterness. He isn’t producing venom like has been doing recently, having to excuse himself for frequent bathroom breaks to spit it up after almost losing his cool in a few classes. The feeling of sand in his mouth has been replaced with a much simpler craving for junk food. For the first time since the night of the Devouring, Legoshi smells regular food and doesn’t recoil.

After Riz wordlessly opens a bag of the chips for him, the hybrid picks one out and turns it over and over in his fingers. Both the other carnivores hold their breath as he delicately places the chip in his mouth and bites down with a satisfying crunch. It tastes salty and full of nameless herbs that the company uses to create canine-friendly onion flavour. It doesn’t make him retch. It doesn’t make him crave meat. It doesn’t taste super appealing, but it’s for normal reasons, rather than a hunger for flesh. Legoshi lets out a barely controlled whimper as more tears roll down the fur on his cheeks.

“You don’t have to keep eating them, Lego.” Jack’s voice comes from one side, and Legoshi can feel the labrador’s arm reach around and stroke his back. His other side suddenly feels much warmer as Riz’s large body comes closer to him and hesitantly shuffles closer, slowly putting his arm around Legoshi’s shoulders.

“No, I want to keep eating them. They taste really good,” the hybrid mumbles through his congestion. “Well, they aren’t actually that good, but I keep wanting to eat more.”

A deep chuckle ripples through Riz, causing Legoshi to look up at the brown bear. “That’s called the munchies, pup.” As soon as the words leave Riz’s mouth, his eyes widen in surprise and horror. “Oh fuck, I’m sorry, that just came out,” he begins to stammer, but stops when Legoshi’s tail begins to wag slightly, soon followed by the dancing of his ears.

“It’s okay,” the hybrid mumbles shyly. “I kinda like it, I think. It makes me feel safe.”

“That’s so freaking cute!” Jack whispers loudly. “Can I say it?”

Legoshi smiles slightly and nods. “Sure. But can we try more of these snacks?” He says, sentence punctuated with the loud gurgle of his stomach. “I’ve finally got my appetite back, and I’ve missed out on so many things!”

The trio quickly become focused on the different flavours of sweets and snacks they have assembled, and begin to rate and sort them in different categories. It’s mostly Jack that cares about the categories, but the other two carnivores are more than happy to indulge him. Eventually, Riz gets up to stretch up his arms towards the sky. As he does, various joints in his spine and shoulders audibly pop, setting Legoshi’s teeth on edge. He looks up at the sounds and is met with the sight of one of the few carnivore species larger than him in the school, and an impressive specimen at that. Riz’s body blocks out a considerable amount of the night sky, and his muscles bulge against his shirt, casting Legoshi in a shadow of moonlight. He also finds himself paying close attention to the way that the bear’s shirt pulls up and reveals a sliver of his furred stomach.

‘Riz is really pretty right now. He could probably pick me up really easily.’ The thought comes unbidden, and he can tell he would panic about it if he wasn’t stoned. Legoshi slowly glances at Jack, and is mildly surprised to find the labrador fixing Riz with the very same expression that he was using just moments ago. When the bear sits back down and reaches for the packet of sweet sesame mochi in Jack’s hands, it takes a second for the dog to find his voice and work his arms. Both canines watch the bear eat the tiny portion in delicate bites, savouring the flavour.

Legoshi looks away, feeling his heart beat louder in his ears and his stomach flutter once again. “I don’t feel so good,” he says, a slight tone of anxiety entering his voice. It’s surprising how immediately both other carnivores are by his side once again, Jack offering water and Riz running his rough hand up and down Legoshi’s back. He downs some water and cringes slightly before laying down on the ground on his side. “My heart feels really fast, and I feel like I’ve got something jumping up and down in my stomach,” he breathes out.

“Would it help if I scratched your ears? Or rubbed your back?” Riz asks, voice filled with concern.

"My belly," Legoshi says with a whimper, feeling a deep need for physical contact with something other than concrete to ground himself, and lays on his back. He brings Riz’s hand down to his stomach and quickly melts into the feeling of the gentle circular motion of the bear's hand. His tail begins to wag slowly against the pool tiles, and his racing heart begins to slow. Huffing slightly, the hybrid pulls up his shirt to reveal the cream fur beneath. Riz lowers his hand much more hesitantly this time, but his touch seems to settle Legoshi’s upset stomach almost immediately. He looks at the bear’s face, bathed in the moonlight and touched with concern, and something clicks into place. They may have started their friendship on dark topics, and without many friendly feelings between each other, but both of them have been there for each other through all of it.

Legoshi reaches out a hand and cups Riz’s cheek, running a claw across his fur and marvelling at the different colours that the moonlight brings out. 

“Your fur is beautiful,” he murmurs.

Acting slowly but surely, letting his body move on its own accord, the hybrid gently pulls the bear’s face closer to his own, and brings their lips to meet one another. It’s soft, it’s safe, it’s trusting, and it tastes slightly of sweet sesame mochi. They kiss for what feels like a million years and only a second before pulling away. Legoshi turns his head at the sound of the gasp from Jack sitting on his haunches close by. The canids lock eyes in a long moment of mutual confusion as to how to act in the wake of the kiss. 

“I think I just realised something,” Jack says, voice barely a whisper.

“Uh, what?” Legoshi replies awkwardly.

“I think I want to kiss you too. Both of you. If that’s okay.”

The words settle into Legoshi’s mind like a rose. Soft and beautiful, but with the threat of getting hurt if not handled with a gentle hand. He shares a look with Riz, and nods slightly.

“You’ll have to come closer, then,” the bear says from above Legoshi, and reaches out a hand that eclipses Jack’s.

All three pull close to each other.

Chapter Text

~~ Riz ~~

Riz moves slowly and gently, careful not to shatter this dream; it must be a dream, he must have fallen asleep while Jack was sorting the snacks. Nothing else could explain the actions of the two canids, yet it feels so real. The bear pulls the labrador closer to him and Legoshi, and leans down tenderly to kiss him. The dog’s muzzle is slightly more boxy than the wolf’s, but no less wonderful to kiss. Their lips meet hesitantly, but Jack quickly pushes into the contact, leaning forward and over the wolf below both of them. Riz feels Jack’s breath on his fur and reaches a hand over to pull gently at his golden ears, prompting a small whine from the labrador. 

The bear pulls back slightly and blinks a few times, much to Jack’s vocal dismay. “Holy shit, this is real,” he says, shock evident in his voice. Riz sits back on his knees, reeling from the realisation. He only snaps out of the daze when he feels Legoshi’s clawed hand holding his. ‘Is this a joke? Is this because I just told you I’m gay? ’ Riz thinks, but stops as his searching gaze finds nothing but total honesty on the wolf’s features.

“It’s real, Riz.” Legoshi’s deep voice cuts through the growing clouds of anxiety. “I- uh- I don’t know what I’m doing, but I want to keep going with both of you,” the wolf continues, stumbling a little as the reality of the situation catches up. “You’re so pretty right now, and I want to put my face in your fur and smell you.”

Both Riz and Jack stifle laughs at Legoshi’s blunt words, and the wolf covers his face with his hands in a cringe as he realises what he said. The bear smiles, a warmth spreading in his chest and over his body. He feels like his body is light and heavy at the same time, and his head is mercifully free of pain. “Oh really? You want to smell me, pup?” Riz asks playfully, leaning down and snuffling loudly around Legoshi’s neck and hands.

“Lego likes smelling B.O.~” Jack teases in a sing-song voice, laying down beside the other carnivore and poking him while giggling once again.

“It’s not that! It’s a wolf thing!” Legoshi protests from between his hands. “I don’t like B.O., I just like how you both smell! And I want to–” his teeth clack together as he snaps his mouth shut, a telltale pink hue colouring under the thin fur on his cheeks.

Riz pushes his nose into Legoshi’s neck, revelling in the shudder that runs through the wolf’s body at the touch. He brings his mouth to the wolf’s ear and gently runs his teeth along the sensitive skin, causing Legoshi to moan involuntarily. “What do you want?” Riz asks.

“I want to smell like you. I want to be– I want to be m–marked by you.” The words come out as small as possible, and Riz can tell that Legoshi is dying a little as he admits it.

“I can do that,” Riz says, grinning from ear to ear and reaching down to put his hand back on the wolf’s belly. The bear pushes his palm hard into the fur, kneading muscle and skin as his hand moves steadily up toward Legoshi’s chest. “You know, bears can scent each other with our hands, but I’ll have to rub it in pretty hard, is that alright, pup?” Riz palms the wolf’s pectorals as he speaks, basking in the whines and groans emanating from the other carnivore.

“Do you think he needs his ears scratched?” Jack asks from the sidelines, transfixed by the scene in front of him, but clearly wanting to join in.

“I think he does,” Riz agrees in mock solemnity, making room for the labrador to get closer.

Legoshi heaves under Riz’s hands as Jack reaches up to scratch behind the wolf’s ears and around his muzzle, his muscles and tendons slowly loosening under the bear’s strong hands. Riz sees Legoshi reaching out with one hand towards him and leans down once again. “What is it?”

“Can you– ha, can you touch me, um. Further down?” The wolf asks, the question setting Riz’s skin on fire and his breath to catch in his throat.

“Are you sure? We don’t have to,” the bear says hoarsely, loath to let the opportunity potentially slip through his fingers.

Legoshi nods with a pleading look in his eyes. “Please.”

With the confirmation, Riz moves his hand down from the wolf’s chest, across his stomach, and slips his waistband down, searching for how far the cream coloured fur goes. Sure enough, the bear feels the stiffness of Legoshi’s erection against his fingers, and he swallows in anticipation as he gently takes hold of it. The wolf’s tail is wagging erratically and Riz can feel a small damp patch at the end of Legoshi’s cock from the precum that leaks from him. Taking the length in his hand, Riz begins to pump his hand up and down. He looks with heavy lust at the two canids with him, Jack having added grasping Legoshi’s chest and nipples to his scratching of the wolf’s ears. Legoshi’s tongue hangs out the side of his mouth as he pants and moans in pleasure.

“Fuck,” Legoshi groans, bucking his hips against Riz’s hand. “I’m already getting close, I’m sorry,” he whimpers, echoed by Jack cooing over him.

Riz nuzzles into the fur on the wolf’s belly with his muzzle and allows his own ears to be pulled at by the other large carnivore’s claws. “It’s okay, you can let go,” he croons, moving his own hand against the motion of Legoshi’s humping.

Legoshi’s words devolve into meaningless high-pitched sounds as he gets closer to orgasm, and Riz can feel his muscles tense under his fur. The wolf bucks wildly against him as he plants kisses and small bites into his skin, the pin-pricks of Riz’s teeth finally sending him over the edge. Legoshi’s cock pulses in the bear’s hand, spurting cum over his fur and hitting Riz in the side of the face and ear. The wolf pants and gasps as he cums, the cry of someone finally finding their place in a world they thought was cut off from them. 

As the trio collectively catches their breaths, Riz sits back up and wipes the cum from his fur with his fingers. ‘ It’s so thick, ’ he thinks to himself, brain still catching up with his body.

“Sorry,” Legoshi pipes up, propping himself up on his elbows with ears drooping in shame. “I didn’t think about it.”

In response, Riz uses his clean hand to tilt the wolf’s face towards him, and deliberately licks the cum from his claws. The bear feels his heart race as Legoshi’s eyes widen, deliberately pushing the already broken boundaries even further. “Jack, do you want any?” He asks as if offering a bite of his mochi from before.

~~ Jack ~~

Jack’s head swims with the weight lifted from his body and soul at the experience of helping his best friend get off. The closeness the two canids have shared since childhood feels like it’s been sanctified, made something almost holy in its elevation above everyday friendship. The labrador’s body feels like it’s filled with warm air, and his eyes glaze over slightly at the sight of Legoshi’s ruffled fur and post-orgasm glow. Jack can’t help but wag his tail so hard his body moves from side to side with happiness as he peppers his best friend’s muzzle and forehead with kisses.

“Jack.” Riz’s voice cuts through the overwhelming emotion, and he looks over to the bear holding out his fingers.

Suddenly, the feeling of joy is replaced with the heat of desire in his chest. Jack gulps, a strange performance anxiety beginning to take root. ‘I can’t back out now! I’ve come so far! ’ He thinks to himself. ‘Besides, I really do want to taste it…’

With a slight frown of concentration, Jack leans forward and sniffs at the proffered hand. Ignoring the weak protests from Legoshi, the labrador delicately extends his tongue and runs it over Riz’s large fingers, closing his eyes slightly to concentrate on his best friend’s flavour. It’s sticky, salty, and strangely moorish to the dog in a way he can’t quite place. Jack opens his eyes and frowns with concentration as he tries to place the taste, licking into the space between Riz’s fingers. When the bear coughs, Jack looks up quizzically to see the large carnivore blushing under his fur. Something about the way Riz reacts to Jack’s tongue sends a shiver down his spine and the grin to return to his face.

“You okay there, big guy?” He asks playfully, emphasising the last two words and taking hold of the bear’s wrist to stop him from pulling away.

“I just didn’t think you’d be so…forward,” Riz says, his tone unmistakably flustered.

“What can I say? I like to please! It must be a dog thing!” Jack replies, putting his bubbly affect back on to further push Riz off balance. The dog has always used the expectations others have of him to make social situations easier, even if he didn’t enjoy it. He usually hates how he naturally plays to the stereotype, and hates it even more that he does genuinely get joy out of doing things for other people. But now, using that assumed subservience as a tool to control, instead of being controlled, gives him a heady rush. Jack moves further forward, clambering over Legoshi and causing Riz to fall back onto one elbow. “Looks like you need help with that, don’t worry, I’ll take care of it!” He adds in his chipper tone, trying not to let any tremor of excitement into his voice.

The labrador climbs into Riz’s lap, the bear hypnotised by what is happening, and gently pins the larger carnivore’s hand to the ground with his own. Jack leans forward and laps his tongue up the side of Riz’s muzzle and cheek, tasting more of Legoshi’s salt before it dries. Jack can feel something hard under him, and his heart races at the pressure on his undercarriage. ‘ Just stay calm, Jack, don’t lose it already! ’ He thinks to himself. Having another guy’s cock under him makes his brain start to fantasise about everything else he could do with it, and the dog has to catch himself before he loses his concentration.

Jack hears movement beside him, and he sees Legoshi sit up to press himself against the bear’s body. Both the canids’ tails wag happily as they brush against each other, and Jack’s heart fills once again with indescribable joy. He turns his head and shares a happy smile with his best friend, even happier for finally seeing Legoshi smile again after so long. When they kiss, it’s with a slightly awkward blush between them despite how far they’ve already come, but a deep love and gratitude passes between them. Legoshi tentatively pushes his tongue into Jack’s mouth, and the smaller carnivore moans slightly. The tender feelings sublimate into something wilder, and they both push back into the kiss. A sharp pain emanates from Jack’s lip as the Legoshi’s sharp fangs nick his lip, and the labrador yelps slightly.

Suddenly, the wolf pulls back in horror and covers his mouth, fear and guilt plain on his face. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry Jack! I’m sorry!” He stammers out.

Jack licks the lip, a little blood welling from the pinprick, and smiles gently. “It’s okay Lego, I’m not hurt,” he says.

“I didn’t mean to! I really didn’t mean to!” The wolf groans, and Jack sees Riz shoot out a hand to grab his hand before Legoshi can run for it.

“Legoshi, look at me,” the bear commands. “Is there any venom?”

Legoshi shakes his head silently.

“Any cravings?”

Legoshi shakes his head stronger this time.

“Then it’s all okay, Jack isn’t hurt,” Riz reassures, gently tugging at the wolf’s hand.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You won’t, you said you don’t have any cravings,” Riz says. “Anyway, I’m here, and I’m way stronger than you,” he adds with a toothy grin.

“Come back Lego, I trust you,” Jack says softly. “Are you really going to deny me kisses at this point?” He adds, trying to alleviate the moment of tension

Legoshi smiles cautiously and slinks back hesitantly, sniffing at Jack’s lip to check if it’s really as fine as he says it is. After a moment, the wolf presses his lips to Jack’s, and the labrador smiles as they kiss. When they break, a string of drool pulls between them before falling onto Riz.

“Ah, I’m sorry!” Jack apologises, sitting back to try to wipe it up and unintentionally grinding against Riz’s cock. Both carnivores groan slightly at the friction, and the labrador automatically presses harder to chase the feeling. 

“That’s– Ngh, that’s alright,” Riz puffs. “How about we get some of these clothes off though? I don’t want to stain your pants.”

Jack nods sluggishly and reluctantly dismounts before wiggling out of his trousers and underwear with slightly shaky hands. When he looks back at Riz, the large carnivore’s powerful thighs are bare in the moonlight, light brown fur going lighter still as it nears his crotch. The thing between his thighs is larger than anything Jack has seen on a real life person, and it’s more than slightly intimidating. However, a rush of determination flows through him and kicks his problem solving brain into action.

“Just lay back, big guy!” He says as he steps over and lowers himself down onto Riz’s lap. The length of the bear’s cock lays twitching slightly underneath Jack, and he takes glorious pleasure in grinding down on it, coaxing a deep, rumbling moan from the larger carnivore. “That’s right, I’ll take care of it for you,” Jack continues, struggling to keep his composure as his fur becomes slick from Riz’s precum. “You’re giving me a lot, you know, it’s really impressive!”

“Fuck you and your encouragement,” Riz groans, but any possible venom in his words is replaced with the sweet honey of pleasure.

“That’s what you’re doing, though,” Legoshi says, surprising Jack with his teasing. The labrador leans back and enjoys his vantage point as the wolf settles down beside them, running his claws up Riz’s chest in repayment for what was done for him. Legoshi once again kisses the bear, and Jack can see how both of their eyes close as they melt into each other.

Placing his hands on Riz’s abdomen, Jack picks up the pace slightly, moving around to try and find a technique that will give the bear the most pleasure. His own cock bobs between his legs as he grinds down, and the pressure from below is adding to the pressure building in his body. Riz begins to buck slightly under him, and Jack can hear his muffled groans getting louder and louder.

“That’s right, bud! You can do it,” Jack pants, feeling muscles bunch under his hands.

Both other carnivores begin to kiss each other harder, and Jack can hear growls in both of their throats. Riz pulls at the scruff of Legoshi’s neck, and the wolf digs his claws into the bear’s chest in response. Jack can smell Riz’s scent being palmed into Legoshi’s neck, and the unmistakably sharp tang of carnivore blood as Legoshi scratches a little too hard. For a moment, Jack thinks that they’re going to be interrupted again, but it seems like the scratch is what Riz needs to go over the edge. The labrador watches in awe as the bear thrusts against his body with enough force to knock him forward slightly. Riz lets out a growl so loud it verges on a roar as he finally releases the pent up energy and cums over his own stomach, thick ropes getting spread up his and Jack’s fur. The erratic bucking slows as he moans in the depths of orgasm, eventually slowing to a panting mess.

“Fuck, that was so good,” Riz breathes out as he lets go of Legoshi’s scruff. “Have you done this before?”

“Nope, I guess I’m just an overachiever,” Jack jokes, still catching his breath.You were really pent up, huh?” He add, stepping lightly off of Riz’s lap and settling down beside him.

“Please, no more teasing,” the bear groans. “I can’t take anymore.”

~~ Legoshi ~~

‘Holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuuuuuck! How did I get here?! It feels so fucking good, so right, I don’t want to stop.’ Legoshi’s thoughts race this way and that, not able to coalesce into any of the fears or anxiety that pass for his usual brain activity. In lieu of this, the hybrid chases the one thing that feels stable, which at the moment has been sharing pleasure with the other two carnivores. When Riz collapses back, Legoshi looks over to Jack with the feral lust he just shared with the bear still in his chest.

“You okay there, Lego?” Jack asks, tilting his head to one side and causing one of his ears to flop over in a way that makes the hybrid want to bite the dog’s neck to mark him.

“Yeah,” Legoshi half-growls, trying to stop his voice from coming out so aggressively. He still can’t quite believe the fact that he has just seen his best friend grind an orgasm out of who he is quickly realising is his crush. It feels like his instincts are going haywire, but not for meat. “I’m way more than okay.”

“You’re looking at me a little scarily there,” the labrador observes with a half grin.

“I’m sorry, I think I’m getting a little carried away. I really want you, Jack,” Legoshi confesses, internally cringing at his blunt language. “I mean I want to make you feel good too!” He adds, and cringes again. “You haven’t, I mean, you haven’t uh. You know, finished.” His voice trails away before ending his sentence lamely. His ears burn as embarrassment takes hold.

“I haven’t cum yet? Yeah I know, no need to get bashful about it now of all times!” Jack teases, standing up and stretching, cock bobbing at Legoshi’s eye-level.

‘I could just lean over and lick him. He’s perfect,’ Legoshi thinks. As Jack walks around the still-panting bear, Legoshi’s nose twitches with a scent coming from between his best friend’s legs. When Jack gets closer, Legoshi reaches out and grabs his wrist before looking up at the labrador. “You have a bit. Down there I mean.” His eyes flick to the cum that slicks the fur around Jack’s cock and balls. “Can I get it?”

Jack’s eyes widen and his cock twitches at the suggestion. “No, no, don’t worry about it!” The dog says quickly. “You shouldn’t feel like you have to do that for me.”

Legoshi falls silent for a moment, but doesn’t let go. “But I want to,” he insists. “You do so much for me, for everyone. I want to do something for you, because I love you.” The words surprise even Legoshi as he says them, especially because he doesn’t even know what he means exactly by them. The two canids have been friends since childhood, they’ve stuck up for each other, comforted each other when things have gone wrong. It seems obvious to say that Legoshi loves Jack, but that word gets so complicated when other people’s assumptions get in the way. It doesn’t feel just like friendship, but it doesn’t feel the same way that it does with Riz. Coming back to his sense, Legoshi realises that there are small tears welling in Jack’s eyes. Before he can panic, however, the dog throws himself bodily into the hybrids’s arms.

“I love you too Lego!” The smaller carnivore half shouts-half sobs, tail wagging so hard it could be used to power a windmill. “You’re my best friend, and I’m feeling so many feelings , and I think it’s a bit because I’m high!”

Both canids devolve into laughter as they hug. When they part, Legoshi puts his hands on either side of Jack’s shoulders and kisses him with renewed passion, his own tail wagging behind him.

“You two are adorable.” Riz’s slightly tired voice comes from the side, and Legoshi can see him pulling a packet of tissues from his crumpled trousers for his fur.

“Well yeah, have you seen him?” The hybrid answers after pulling away from the kiss, causing Jack to wiggle in a happy dance at the compliment. “Jack, I’m serious, you mean so much to me, I want you to feel good.”

“Well, okay,” Jack says hesitantly. “Only if you won’t think it’s gross or something.”

“I think it’s actually pretty hot, and you can tell me what to do if that makes it less awkward for you.” Legoshi looks away slightly as he speaks, still slightly embarrassed by verbalising his own desires.

“I didn’t realise you were such a sub, Lego!” Jack chuckles. “Okay big guy, come down here then.” The dog sits back down on the tiles, tail wagging between his legs, and beckons Legoshi down.

The  hybrid obeys wordlessly, positioning himself on all fours with his head between the labrador’s knees. Jack’s hand quickly finds his ears, and he closes his eyes at the sensation of them being scratched and pulled. Eventually, he feels a cautious pressure applied to the back of his head, and he obediently opens his eyes and lowers his muzzle. Legoshi gently palms Jack’s balls up so he can run his tongue up the dog’s underside. The taste of Riz’s cum on Jack’s fur is a delicious cocktail that floods Legoshi’s mouth and leaves him wanting more. He licks in long steady strokes to get as much of it as he can before moving further up, and before long, his nose is nuzzling his best friend’s cock. Legoshi looks up and sees Jack looking back with a whimper in his eyes. The dog would be whimpering from his mouth as well if he wasn’t biting his lip, but the sight is still wonderful to behold. 

Legoshi maintains eye contact as he opens his jaws and lets his long tongue wrap around Jack’s cock, savouring the different flavours. A deep feeling of satisfaction blooms in the hybrid’s chest as he coaxes Jack’s whimper out into the open, and the feeling grows deeper as it turns into a moan. Legoshi can feel the fur on his head tighten as the fingers pull harder. 

“More,” Jack breathes out, his own tongue beginning to loll out the side of his mouth.

Legoshi quickly obliges, moving his head to bring the leaking appendage fully into his mouth, careful to avoid his fangs. Jack begins to moan Legoshi’s name as he bobs his head up and down, easily taking the whole length. ‘I wish I could have done this for him earlier,’ Legoshi thinks to himself. ‘He looks so much nicer when he’s not stressed.’

“Fuck, Legoshi, I think I’m close,” Jack stutters, struggling to speak with his tongue so loose in his mouth.

Legoshi vocalises his own pleasure without stopping, intent on getting his best friend to cum. The fingers grab his fur tighter still, so tight as to be almost painful, but the hybrid doesn’t care. He can feel Jack buck slightly into his mouth, and he smiles despite himself. The labrador isn’t that big, and Legoshi is just happy he trusts him enough to do this.

“Haa, oh fuck. I’m cumming, Legoshi, I’m cumming,” Jack moans, voice getting louder and higher pitched as he reaches the zenith of his climax, spilling cum into Legoshi’s mouth and coating his tongue. The dog keeps moaning as he cums, pumping salty liquid until he lays back exhausted.

Legoshi swallows the mouthful dutifully and sits up, only to see Riz already clothed again and watching the display with a smile on his face. The other carnivore’s expression is gentle and sleepy, and Legoshi can see a row of impressive teeth when he yawns. ‘Those teeth were biting my lips before, they’re so pretty,” he thinks. “I think…I’m gay?” He says, feeling stupid saying it even as he does.

“I would be surprised if you weren’t,” Riz replies lazily. “You could be bi?”

Legoshi takes a moment to think about all the women his friends have insisted are beautiful and finds no real desire there. When he thinks about the people he’s really attracted to, only a handful of people really come to mind. “No, definitely gay. But like, I’m gay for you.”

“Do you mean you like me?” Riz’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

“Yeah, that. I think that maybe I’m in love with you?” Legoshi’s brows furrow in thought. “And I think I have a crush on Tem as well?”

Riz’s eyebrows really raise at that, and he stops for a moment before speaking again. “Why don’t we talk about this when we’re sober?” He suggests. “We need to sleep.”

Legoshi nods wordlessly, still unable to comprehend his confession, or the feelings that the night has brought up. He looks up at the stars above them, the only witnesses to the trio’s love-making. “I remember Jack saying something about how every person has a star in the sky. Do you think that’s true?”

He hears the bear walk over and sit back down beside him. “Maybe. Maybe there’ll be one for us up there right now,” Riz says, pressing Jack’s pants into Legoshi’s hands. “We should go,” he repeats, making sure the command gets through the fog of sex and weed.

Legoshi nods and brings the clothes over to the still-sprawled labrador. Gently, he clothes his best friend, not helped by Jack’s giggling and insistence on being difficult. After wrestling with the dog’s legs, Legoshi moves to stand up, but stops at Jack’s whine, the smaller carnivore holding out his arms to be picked up. Warmth spreads through Legoshi as he obliges, revelling in the soft texture of Jack’s fur and his breath on his neck.

Once Riz has put everything back in the bag, the trio wanders down the stairs as quietly as they can while stoned, their stealth slightly hampered by the occasional yips as Jack stirs in the sleep he quickly fell into in Legoshi’s arms. They reach Riz’s dorm first, and Legoshi stops outside the door, reaching out to grab the corner of the bear’s shirt before he can go inside.

The hybrid looks down at the floor silently for a few moments, all the words he wants to say unable to reach his vocal chords. ‘What do I say to him? I love you? No, that’s way too much, you don’t even know if he likes you back like that,’ Legoshi thinks, every possible answer to Riz’s quizzical expression whirling in his brain like a hurricane barely held back by the calming effects of the honey.

“What is it, Legoshi?” Riz whispers eventually.

Legoshi looks up and into the bear’s soft and gentle eyes. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay with you for a bit.”

“What about Jack?”

The hybrid shakes Jack slightly to wake him up. “Can we stay here for a few hours?” He asks the barely awake canine.

The labrador looks blearily at the two larger carnivores for a few seconds and nods. “Big bear means big pillow,” he says sleepily before slipping back into his dream.

“Alright then, but you should head back before you sleep.” Riz holds the door open for the two canids and closes it behind them.

Chapter Text

~~ Riz ~~

‘Man, what a crazy dream.’ Riz breathes deeply in and out with a smile as his brain replays some of the raunchier parts of what it has just been showing him. He shifts slightly as he feels himself grow hard, and Legoshi stirs in his arms, letting out an adorable little grumble. ‘God he’s cute,’ Riz thinks, and then stops, eyes widening in the dark. ‘Oh fuck, that was real. That was REAL. Holy fucking hell, Legoshi is in my fucking bed after I watched him blow his best friend. Jack’s in my fucking bed too! What’s the time?! ’

To the bear’s horror, he can hear one of his roommates coming over to his bunk. In a panic, Riz pulls his bedcovers over the head of both canids in his bed just as his curtains are opened. The smiling face of Amos, a black bear pokes into the bunk, and Riz tries to look as nonchalant as possible with two other guys in your bed. “Hey Riz! You still want to work out before breakfast this morning?” Amos asks quietly. When he looks down at the bulky shape under the covers, his eyebrows go up and his mouth hangs open in shock.

“I can explain,” Riz begins, but Amos holds up his hands with a grin on his face.

“No need to explain, didn’t realise you were such a player, though!” Amos says, a tone of admiration in his voice. “You could have told me before I went to sleep last night, but you’re out here making bold moves bringing a girl back to your dorm, I respect it!”

As if on cue, Legoshi’s muzzle pokes out from the covers, quickly followed by his head, eyes blinking in an effort to figure out where he is. “Riz? Did we fall back asleep? What’s the time?” He asks.

Riz looks back up to Amos, panic now blatant on his face. The two bears stare at each other for a long second as Legoshi sniffs the air, his tongue flicking out of his mouth a few times. In some sick joke that the universe seems to be playing on Riz, a smaller shape squirms under the covers, and the golden fur of Jack becomes visible as he pulls himself up to spoon Legoshi, back to Amos and muzzle over the larger canid’s shoulder. 

“Hey there, pup,” Jack says with a salacious giggle.

“Jack, stop talking,” Riz says desperately.

“But he said I could say it!” Jack complains before looking more closely at Riz’s face. “Wait, why are you in our dorm?”

“I’m not, you’re in mine, now shut up!” Riz half whispers, half pleads.

A look of confusion passes over Jack and Legoshi’s faces as Riz’s words make their way through their still-addled minds. As they do, both canids turn around to see Amos standing over them with a completely frozen expression. Legoshi puts his hands over Jack’s muzzle just as the labrador screams, turning it into a muffled yelp that nonetheless seems to shake Amos out of his trance.

“I’m just gonna,” he begins, backing away. “I’ll just, uh. I’ll head on out, then.” As he finishes speaking, the black bear opens the door to the hallway and closes it very quietly. After a second, Riz hears his footsteps hurtling away from the room and towards the stairs.

All three carnivores take a few seconds to process the monumental amount of rumours that could be spread about them, and eventually Jack removes Legoshi’s hand from around his mouth.

“Are we like, all fucked?” He asks dully.

“I don’t think anyone else is awake, so we could go shower and head back to our dorm, and no one would know,” Legoshi mumbles, quickly losing his coherency.

“No! Don’t go back to sleep!” Riz shakes the wolf and throws off the covers only to scramble in an effort to pull them back up again. “Why are you naked?! ” He demands under his breath.

“I don’t know, I don’t like the texture of clothes, I must have taken them off in my sleep,” Legoshi yawns, sitting up and fumbling around the foot of the bed to find his pants. “Where are they?” 

Jack tries to step up out of the bunk and stumbles, falling flat on his snout. “I found them,” he says, standing back up and handing over the various garments that Legoshi managed to remove.

Riz lays back with his hands on his face, trying to figure out how he is going to explain things to Amos when they next see each other. After the sounds of the others getting ready subside, he lowers his hands onto his side. “We have to plan better if we get stoned again. Also, are you two going to be okay getting back? You’re not still high?” He asks, protective instinct setting in.

“I think I’m still a bit stoned,” Legoshi admits after fumbling with his belt three times before getting it back on. “But we’ll be okay. The guys and us dodge the matrons all the time to go stargazing on the roof.”

“Okay, I’d just hate for you to get into trouble because of me,” Riz says.

Legoshi’s still slightly dilated pupils focus on Riz, and his expression softens as he sits back down on the bunk for a moment. “We won’t,” he says, and licks his lips nervously before quickly bending down and kissing Riz on the cheek. “I love you,” he whispers, almost too quiet to hear.

Before he can pull back, Riz stops him with a hand, and pulls him into a proper kiss, long and deep. “I love you too,” he says, looking deep into the wolf’s eyes.

“Hey Legoshi, we really need to go,” Jack says. “It was fun hanging out, Riz, even though it wasn’t quite what I thought was going to happen,” he adds a little awkwardly. “We should, um. We should do that again.” A blush runs up the labrador’s face as he speaks, and he finally rushes out of the room, dragging Legoshi behind him.

When they shut the door, Riz lays back in his bed, still struggling to process all of the emotions within him from the last twelve hours. Above all the anxiety about Amos, and the deep confusion as to what exactly him and Legoshi are now, let alone him and Jack, is a strange elation. It’s like someone has turned his body into a balloon, and he could float away at any second if not for his blankets. Riz’s small smile quickly becomes an idiotic grin as he thinks about the last words Legoshi said. He touches his lips with his hand and kisses the wolf’s scent that he finds there.

“I love you, Legoshi,” he whispers to the air.

~~ Legoshi ~~

“Wake up sleepyhead! Time to rise and shine!” 

Legoshi groans as his curtain is pulled open, light streaming into his bunk with the usual sounds of his roommates. “Please, just let me sleep a little longer,” he whines.

“Nu-uh, we’re going to breakfast soon!” Collot’s enthusiasm and boundless energy blasts Legoshi’s fatigue like a beam from a solar death ray. “Come on Legoshiii! You can drink as much lemon juice as you waaant!” The sheepdog adds teasingly.

“Fine,” Legoshi grumbles, flopping out of bed and rummaging under the bunk for his clothes. As he pulls his trousers up and walks over to the closet to grab a shirt, the sound around him noticeably dips, and when he turns back, Miguno, Durham, and Collot are all standing far too close and sniffing his fur. “Uh, guys?” he asks.

“Two things,” Durham says, holding up his fingers. “One, why do you smell like bear. Two, you have scales?! ”

Legoshi freezes, eyes moving this way and that, looking for an escape, either physically or by reaching out to Jack as his lifeline. ‘I can’t implicate Jack, shit, what do I say?! ’ He thinks desperately. “I’m a hybrid,” he blurts out, more concerned about concealing his late night escapades than his ancestry for some reason. To emphasise the point, he opens his mouth wide so that his roommates can see all the teeth that have been replaced with komodo dragon fangs. “‘Ee?” He says before closing his mouth. “My grandpa is a komodo dragon, I don’t really want to get into it.”

The uncharacteristically open response stuns the trio into momentary silence.

“Do you get like, venom?” Durham asks before being elbowed in the ribs by Miguno.

“He just said he doesn’t want to get into it, dude!” The hyena scolds.

“I do, but the nurse gave me some tablets to chew that last a while,” Legoshi answers anyway.

“So what about the bear smell?” Collot asks insistently, a sly grin on his face. “Did you…get it on last night?”

Legoshi’s mouth drops open and quickly shuts before he pulls back his collar to sniff at the fur on his chest. Sure enough, despite the immense amount of soap he used last night, Riz’s scent is still present under his own smell. It’s not recognisably Riz’s anymore, thank Rex, but any carnivore with a good nose will be able to tell it’s from a bear. As a flush runs its way up his body and into his cheeks, Durham, Miguno, and Collot all become more and more excited, and even Voss clambers up onto Collot’s shoulder to find out what’s up.

“Is that why you came back so late?” The fennec fox asks, grinning evilly.

In that instant, all of them, except for Jack, explode with questions and follow Legoshi around the room as he finishes getting ready.

“You lost your V-Card?! Our pure boy Legoshi?!”

“I knew you had it in you, bro! Nice one!”

“What was it like with a girl that big?”

“Everyone’s big to you, Voss.”

“Hey fuck you, you know what I mean!”

“GUYS,” Legoshi barks, silencing them. He rubs his eyebrows with his hands for a second before looking at the group. “I’m not going to dishonor her reputation by talking about it with you all the very next morning! What happened was special, and I’m keeping it that way!” He speaks with a tone that he hopes comes across as mature, but all the faces assembled in front of him fall.

“Man, you still talk like a virgin, whatever,” Collot says with a shrug. “Let’s just all get breakfast.”

~~

Legoshi trudges to the Drama club changing rooms with ears and tail drooping. The entire day has been a cavalcade of whispers and gossip following him from the mouths of any carnivore that gets close enough to him to smell the pungent scent of bear coming off of him. He tried reapplying deodorant, but it didn’t work. It’s so strong that even some of the avian students have managed to pick up on it, although they just complained of a weird smell, not having the ability to discern any further. Food has returned to tasting like sand, although there was a little flavour in his eggs and soy-patty. The anti-venom tablets he crunched up during breakfast and lunch had a flavour, although overpowering mint is not what Legoshi generally looks for in terms of taste. 

‘Do I need to take another? ’ He thinks to himself as he reaches the changing room door. ‘The packet said to have four a day for ‘heavy venom production’, but what does that even mean? My instincts haven’t been bothering me that much today, but I can’t risk accidentally hurting someone else.'  The hybrid smiles slightly, happy that he hasn’t felt the effects of meat withdrawal too badly today. Voss would probably make some kind of joke about him having eaten meat the night before, but Legoshi tries to think of it in terms of being supported by his friends instead. ‘And my boyfriend,’ he adds mentally, making his tail start to wag and causing his smile to grow wider. Thinking about Riz, and the kisses they exchanged, causes a tingling sensation to run through his stomach and up over his ears as they dance their happy dance.

~~

Louis’ performance is mesmerising on stage, even though it’s just a rehearsal. Legoshi finds himself stopping to watch as he and Kibi transport boxes of costumes and fabric from storage to the backstage area.

“We need to show all the first-years the importance of the drama club,” the buck announces after the scene winds down, but before all the actors can disperse. “We don’t have time to worry about our bodies.”

Legoshi thinks about his own changes, and something about the way that Louis speaks makes all his worries seem so much smaller. Not in the way of being relieved, but that the deer is hiding something much worse behind his words. ‘What could such a popular herbivore like him be dealing with? ’ He thinks.

 “Attack me like you mean it,” Louis continues. “I’m a deer, and you’re all carnivores attacking Adler to try and kill me, you all need to use that ferocity I know you’re hiding, use me as motivation to snarl.”

“Legoshi, hurry up!” The small voice of Kibi says behind the hybrid.

Backstage, Legoshi continues pondering those words, thinking about how they apply to himself as the others gossip about why they’re taking a break. Thoughts of that night keep brushing against his mind, and as he unstitches a piece of clothing so Dom can use the fabric for something else, he finds himself putting the stitch-ripper down and pulling them apart with his claws. Although his hands are large and intimidating, each stitch comes apart without tearing the surrounding fabric, delicately popping and revealing the next fibre to be cut. Legoshi feels a faint taste of bitter venom on his tongue before it’s neutralised by the tablet he chewed before coming to club, and he can’t help but think about the texture of skin as he slashed open the dingo’s belly. Trying not to bring attention to the way his stomach grumbles, Legoshi puts the fabric down and rummages in a nearby box for something to distract him. Unfortunately, he pulls out a very familiar-looking costume.

“Oh, this is Tem’s,” he says in surprise, holding the golden flowing robes in front of him. As he does, all the rest of the stage crew stops talking and looks at him. “What should I, uh, do with it?”

Fudge, the red panda, looks nervously around the group, trying not to stare at the costume. “Well, we can’t keep it, can we?” He asks. “I mean, he wasn’t the Devouring victim, but it still feels…weird.”

“Yeah, it was his roommate that kicked the bucket, but it’s tainted. Tem isn’t in Drama club anymore, and we all know he left because he’s scared of carnivores now,” Kai says loudly, blustering as usual.

“Kai, that’s not fair,” Kibi says, although not with much conviction.

“Yeah, he still hangs out with Riz and Legoshi!” Dom says, glaring pointedly at the mongoose.

“Yeah, well, no offence Legoshi, but it’s not like they’re much like carnivores,” Kai replies dismissively.

“Oh really? So all carnivores are meant to be loud-mouths like Bill?” Dom retorts.

Legoshi doesn’t hear the rest of the argument, becoming too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice. The fabric is smooth under his hands, some kind of fake silk, but immensely soft as well. ‘It feels kind of like I’m holding Tem’s skin,’ Legoshi thinks. 'The one he wore for Adler at least. It’s soft, like him, but also strong, so hard to pull apart. When his roommate was devoured, I thought it was Riz, but it could have been anyone. I smelled them that morning, but then they left. There’s so much darkness in the world, and I’m part of it now that I devoured someone else. Louis said to use his status as a herbivore as motivation for the carnivore actors, but I don’t think that I could hurt him if I tried. I can’t bear to think about hurting a herbivore again. Noone wants to talk about what happened, but it’s on everyone’s minds. And if this costume is tainted just by association with Tem, then what does that make me? Or Riz? Or even Jack? ’

Legoshi’s tongue flicks out without him thinking, and he gets another snapshot of intense smells over the stream of information coming from his nose. The scent of the special conditioner that Tem uses still lingers on the fabric, and he has to stop himself from pressing his nose into the costume. ‘Louis might have a lot of pressure on him if he wants to be the Beastar, but Tem is dealing with the aftermath of the Devouring more than anyone else I know. He looked like he was okay with getting devoured by Riz and I that evening when he confronted us. I hope he’s staying safe.’

“...goshi. LEGOSHI,” Dom’s face cranes around into Legoshi’s field of view.

“What!” Legoshi startles, prompting a kindly smile from the peafowl. “Sorry, I zoned out a bit.”

“That’s okay! I was saying that we need to go and ask for some roses as decoration for the opening of Adler, and that you should go and get some from the gardening club,” Dom repeats with a smile.

“Are you sure I should go?” Legoshi asks, and wilts slightly as the unspoken words of ‘I don’t think I should go’ are completely ignored.

“Of course!” Dom waves a hand dismissively. “You’re a second year! It’d be weird for a junior to go ask for things from another club, they wouldn’t be taken seriously. Besides, I think you’ll really like it, I can tell you where to go.”

Legoshi sighs and stands up. “No, I know where it is. It’ll be nice to see it during the daytime,” he says, causing Kibi to suddenly drop a box of props and Kai to choke on the water he was drinking.

“O–oh, you’ve been there at night?” Dom asks, and Legoshi looks at the rest of the stage crew’s reaction with confusion.

“Yeah, a few weeks ago,” Legoshi replies, continuing despite the weird looks he is getting from everyone else. “Kibi, can you come with me? I don’t want to freak them out by just being a large carnivore showing up. It’s probably mostly herbivores, the gardens were huge!”

Now, Dom looks even more confused than Legoshi feels. “Do you know who’s in the club?” He asks.

“No?”

“Uh, alright then, yeah, take Kibi, that’s a good idea.”

Legoshi tries to figure out the meaning behind his clubmates’ reactions all the way to the Gardening club. He could ask Kibi, but he’s learned long ago that actually asking about the meaning behind what he seems to understand already only gets him more people thinking he’s a weirdo. The hybrid sighs under his breath as he reaches the door to the rooftop garden and stops just before opening it to wait for Kibi. While the anteater makes his way up the steps, Legoshi idly peers through the grating in the door, and two distinct scents catch his attention, both familiar. He tastes the air on instinct, and freezes. One is Tem’s, sending his heart racing with joy. The other is one he’s only smelled once before, and it makes his heart race with fear. 

“Why do you keep poking your tongue out, dude? It’s like you have an injury,” Kibi mutters as he reaches the door. Before Legoshi can protest, the smaller animal turns the handle and opens it, letting light and scents flood into the dingy stairwell.

Standing about ten metres away and holding the end of a hose, is a pure white rabbit. The very same one Legoshi attacked. “Can I help you?” She asks with a smile and a small wave.

Legoshi follows Kibi into the garden, despite telling himself to run away as fast as he can. ‘I shouldn’t be here, oh fuck, why did it have to be HER that runs the Gardening club?! ’ he thinks to himself as Kibi introduces them both. ‘What should I say? I’m sick? Stomachache? Hay fever from all the flowers? Yeah, that’ll work.’ Just as Legoshi is about to speak, the anteater slaps the back of his hand to his forehead in a display of surprise that shows everyone exactly why he isn’t in the actor’s team.

“Ah, damn! I just forgot that I have something really important to do!” He says, blatantly lying. “Legoshi will be okay to ask you what we need!” He adds before turning on his heel and dashing out of the door before the hybrid can react.

The sound of the door slamming shut makes Legoshi jump, especially with the breeze that signals the end of his tail was almost broken off by said door, and he yelps in surprise before turning back and looking through the grate at the retreating figure of Kibi. ‘FUUUUUCK WHAT DO I DO,’ Legoshi thinks.

“Hm, sounds like the worst rumours about me have spread to every male herbivore in the school, although all boys are scared of girls to a certain extent,” the rabbit’s voice is slightly closer this time, and Legoshi whips around to see her standing just a few metres away. Closer to, he can see that her left arm is wrapped in bandages, and that the fur around her forehead and one eye is noticeably thin, almost bare in patches. “Are you?”

“What?” Legoshi asks. ‘Did I do that? I definitely did that, was that from my venom? REX I should’ve been more careful kissing Jack and Riz last night! ’

“I said are you scared of me,” she repeats, one eyebrow cocked up with an amused expression.

“Yes…?” Legoshi answers. “I don’t know any rumours, though,” he adds, trying to press himself into the door. 'I tried to EAT you! Of course I’m scared of you! ’

“Don’t know any rumours, you say? So you’re just scared of girls in general?” The rabbit teases relentlessly, hands on hips.

“No!” Legoshi protests, waving his hands in front of him and almost immediately putting them behind his back after realising that his claws are close to her ear-height. ‘I don’t have the right to be here, I should be as far as possible in a fucking prison cell! ’

“Scared of me specifically, then?”

“Haru, are you torturing someone again?” The voice filters over the blooming flowerbeds from behind some large bushes, making Legoshi’s ears prick up and swivel towards the sound. He sniffs the air, and remembers about the other scent that he picked up before entering. As he remembers, Tem comes around the side of the bushes wearing a wide-brim sunhat, his ears sticking out the top and white wool shining in the bright sunlight. The pull of what Legoshi now recognises as attraction overrides the horrible fear that was gripping him before, and all he can focus on is the stunning vision of beauty now filling every space in his mind. At first, Legoshi feels like he’s going to have a panic attack, but after a second, he realises that the pounding of his heart is not from anxiety.

“Tem!” He says excitedly, tail immediately beginning to wag back and forth with enough force to dust the whole of the Drama club backstage in one fell swoop. “You’re in the Gardening club now?”

“Oh! Legoshi, it’s you!” Tem’s face splits into a wide grin as he runs over. Whatever hesitation Tem has been harbouring seems to be gone by now, as the alpaca wraps his arms around Legoshi in a tight hug, which he bends down to reciprocate as best he can. When they break, he steps back and adjusts his hat, a small blush of embarrassment going through his cheeks. “Yeah, I came up here to get some peace and quiet after the Devouring, and Haru here let me stick around, until she started forcing me to work.”

“I didn’t force you to work! You were just making yourself more depressed by sitting around moping every day!” Haru says with mock indignance. “Now come on, Mr. Wolf, let’s see what flowers you need.”

‘How can they mention the Devouring so casually? ’ Legoshi thinks to himself as he follows both herbivores back around to the main area. 'I guess it’s different for herbivores, especially two herbivores who have both been so close to a Devouring themselves. What’d Durham say that time? You either laugh or you cry? Something like that.’

“So, let’s look at these plans,” Haru says, holding out the drawing Dom supplied with Tem looking over her shoulder.

“Ah, Dom has such a nice line,” Tem says, with Haru humming in agreement.

‘They’re standing really close to each other,’ Legoshi thinks, looking between both herbivores. ‘Are they…together? It’d make sense. Way more sense than me and Tem. Or me and Tem and Riz. Or me and Tem and Riz and kind of Jack. Ugh, why is this so hard! ’ The feeling of joy from before begins to sink from his chest to his stomach, turning sullen and depressed as it does. “I think he wants to have them in red roses,” Legoshi supplies, noticing the way both herbivores’ ears twitch around in response to his voice.

“No, no, no,” Haru shakes her head. “All of them in red roses? Isn’t this play a tragedy? I’ve seen the posters, red roses are far too romantic. I have other colours of rose, we should look at those ones instead.”

“Oh, okay, that makes sense,” Legoshi says. “Like how you wouldn’t light a fight scene with cooler colours?”

Haru turns to give him a funny look, squinting hard and turning to Tem. “This wolf is that guy?” She asks the alpaca meaningfully before turning her face back up to Legoshi. “Where’s the bear?”

“Riz? He’s uh, still in Drama club,” Legoshi says.

“I thought you two always hung around each other,” Haru says to Legoshi’s surprise, and steps forward to grab Legoshi’s tie and pull him down to her height, where she sniffs at his neck fur. “Although, you do smell like bear, so maybe you’ve been really hanging around each other lately.” The rabbit raises one eyebrow as she lets Legoshi go, causing him to almost fall backwards in terror.

‘She got so close to my face, if she can smell Riz on me, she would definitely be able to remember my scent from the night I attacked her. She’s going to scream, or tell Tem, and then I’m fucked! ’ Legoshi scrambles upright and his eyes search for a way out.

“Haru, stop it,” Tem says sternly, rolling his eyes. “It’s alright, Legoshi, don’t run away.” The way the alpaca speaks is so calming to Legoshi’s ears, it makes much of the tension bleed away from his body with just a few words. However, there is still a small ball of anxiety within the hybrid that doesn’t seem to go away. With each passing second, it seems to grow hotter and larger, and it soon makes Legoshi want to dig his claws into his palms. Tem’s expression grows concerned at Legoshi’s reaction, and he steps forward to hold Legoshi’s hand.

The hybrid flinches away, mind consumed with the sound of Haru’s arm so easily slicing open repeating itself over and over again. The smells of the garden are becoming overwhelming, no matter how sweet and floral they are. Legoshi begins to pant in distress, and he trips backwards, landing on his rump painfully as he tries to clutch his nose and close his eyes to block everything out. His claws easily pierce the flesh around his snout, but he doesn’t care. It doesn’t really hurt, and anything is better than the assault on his sense from the world, even pain.

“Legoshi, I’m going to get something to help block out the smells.” Tem’s voice filters through from far away, but it manages to anchor the hybrid, and he grabs on like it’s a life ring in a storm. There’s some rustling, and he can hear Tem kneel down in front of him. “Can you take your hands away, Legoshi? Your claws look like they’re hurting you,” Tem says, gentle but firm.

The hybrid shakes his head and tries to speak, but only a hissing whine comes out of his mouth.

“Okay, well if this doesn’t work after a few seconds, you can take it off right after,” Tem says. “Just take your hands away, there we go, good boy!” He adds as Legoshi begins to force his hands away from his face, only scratching himself slightly. The verbal encouragement helps keep Legoshi still, but he keeps his eyes shut as Tem puts something over his muzzle and clips it on behind his ears. 

As soon as he does, the amount of smells assailing Legoshi’s nose reduces to almost nothing. Even an experimental tongue flick brings nothing more back than a soft, mesh-like texture, just in front of his face. When he opens his eyes, Legoshi can see a bright pink mask enclosing his entire muzzle, with a small zipper on the top. It’s made of layers of some kind of thick fabric, and every time he breathes in, it seems to filter the air all around his mouth and nose.

“Is that okay?” Tem asks, concern written across his features in big capital letters. “It’s not uncomfortable?”

Legoshi runs a hand over the mask in astonishment. “It’s good,” he says, a little muffled from the fabric. “Where did you get this?” He asks, looking at Tem in wonder.

“Phew!” The alpaca lets out a large breath and stands up, dusting off the knees of his pants. “I got it a little bit ago when I noticed you got overwhelmed one time at lunch by a bunch of different smells, although I thought you might just be sleep deprived as well.”

“Oh,” Legoshi smiles, a little bit of the warm feeling from before returning to his chest. “And, uh, pink?” He adds.

“Well, you keep talking about trying not to be scary, so I thought that, if you were going to wear a mask, you might not want to if you thought it made you look more scary, so I chose pink!” Tem begins to ramble, ending it with a shrug. 

“I’m sorry,” Haru says awkwardly from a few metres behind Tem. “I really didn’t mean to make you that scared, I didn’t realise you were so, uh, overwhelmed.” Her voice is filled with genuine regret and worry for Legoshi. Now that he isn’t having whatever that weird attack that was, the hybrid finds it much easier to be around the rabbit and keep his worse thoughts in check.

“It’s okay, I didn’t even know that was going to happen,” Legoshi offers, before falling silent again, not looking quite at Haru’s eyes. “I, uh, it’s been like this since I was a kid,” he offers, eyes focusing on a beetle making its slow crawl across the dust. He reaches down and picks it up as gently as possible, taking in how the light shimmers across it’s blue carapace. “I don’t know why, but sometimes there’s just too many scents, or sounds, or something. I used to snap at people and myself when I was a pup if it happened, but I was told I had to stop doing that otherwise I’d get arrested when I grew older.” Legoshi holds the beetle up to his face to view it better.

“Sounds like we both have to work against what others think of us,” Haru says, stepping closer a little cautiously and bending down to look at the beetle. “You’re really gentle with him, huh? I would have thought the claws would get in the way.”

“It just takes practice,” Legoshi says simply before sliding his gaze to Haru, eyes resting for a few moments on her bandages and the thin patches of fur on her brow. ‘I have to do something to make it up to you, Haru, even if you don’t know that’s why I’m doing it,’ he thinks. Legoshi puts the beetle onto a nearby flowerpot and stands up, dusting himself off. “Do you need anything done? I don’t want to take your flowers for free.”

“You still want to help me after I just made you have a meltdown?” Haru asks in disbelief.

Legoshi nods.

“You’re a bit of a weird guy, aren’t you?” Haru asks, cocking her head to one side as if Legoshi is a puzzle she’ll understand if she just looks at him another way.

“Yeah, he is,” Tem agrees with a chuckle. “I’m still pruning those roses, but maybe there’s some big pots we need to move?”

Haru perks up at the suggestion. “Oh, yeah true! A big tough guy like you’d be able to move them for sure!” She skips behind Legoshi, and he can tell that she hesitates when she gets there. “Can I tie your tail up? I don’t want this big thing to knock any seedlings over,” she asks, following through when Legoshi nods. 

The rabbit leads Legoshi through the gardens to the tasks she needs completed, which he does so dutifully. A few times, he feels the urge to ask her about her injuries, but thinks better of it. Tem smiles every time Legoshi sees him, and it doesn’t feel right to break that peace with potentially dangerous subjects. Eventually, Legoshi waves them goodbye and walks back down the stairs in a thoughtful mood, taking off the mask and holding it in his hand when he gets far enough away from the garden. He finds Kibi sitting at the bottom of the stairs, and the anteater looks glad to see him.

“Legoshi! How are you? Are you alright? Is that a muzzle?!” The herbivore asks, last sentence modulated with horror.

“What? No? It’s just a mask. Tem is in the gardening club, and he gave it to me since I was getting really bad hayfever,” Legoshi explains, congratulating himself on how easily he manages to weave truth and lies together.

“Oh thank Rex, I thought she got you.” Kibi sighs in relief, but furrows his brows soon afterwards as they begin to walk back to the Drama club. “Tem was there? I guess that’s what Dom meant by you liking Gardening club so much, I thought that he was just being gross for some reason.”

“Gross?” Legoshi asks, confused.

“Well, that rabbit has a bad reputation,” Kibi explains, lowering his voice as if Haru can hear through metal doors, and down corridors and stairwells. “They say she’s a slut. She seduces males of any species and has her way with them. I hope Tem’s safe.”

Legoshi frowns as Kibi speaks, knowing from his grandfather’s attempts to raise him properly that the way that the herbivore is talking is extremely disrespectful. Besides, given last night’s events, Legoshi feels the need to defend anyone accused of sexual deviancy. “Don’t talk about her like that, it’s rude,” he says flatly. “Anyway, who cares if she has sex with lots of people? As long as no one is being forced, I don’t see how that could be bad. Is it because she’s a girl?”

“Uh, well, I mean, it’s not really ladylike,” Kibi fumbles, clearly not expecting pushback from the usually quiet hybrid.

“So it is because she’s a girl, that’s it,” Legoshi insists.

“I guess…” Kibi trails off. “Now that you say it like that, it’s kinda dumb, isn’t it?” The anteater shrugs awkwardly. “Sorry, you’re right.”

“That’s okay, everyone thinks dumb stuff sometimes,” Legoshi smiles at the herbivore. “But you should probably tell whoever you heard that from they’re being stupid.”

He feels surprisingly light after visiting the Gardening club, and that lightness stays with him all the way back to his dorm that evening. Sitting on his bunk while his roommates argue about what movie to watch, he turns on his phone and opens his messages.

Legoshi hesitates for a second, smile fading slightly. As he writes his next message, the hybrid braces himself for a negative reaction.

Legoshi releases the breath he’s been holding and smiles to himself.

“Lego! Want to come watch a movie with us?” Jack’s voice cuts through, and the labrador waves him over with an enthusiastic smile.

“Sure!” Legoshi replies, and walks over to settle down beside his best friend. Halfway through the movie, the labrador clutches his hand at a scary scene. Legoshi looks down at the hand, and smiles again. ‘Maybe things are looking up,’ he thinks to himself.

Chapter Text

~~ Riz ~~

“Co-existence and co-prosperity? What a bunch of bullshit! Louis is such a fucking fake, and everyone in Drama club knows it, but we can’t say anything to people outside the club because he’ll kick us out!” Kai complains, throwing his hands up in the air irritably. Earlier that day, the whole club had to stand awkwardly on the stage while Louis accepted the award on behalf of the Drama club. Riz had stayed close to Legoshi and had spent much of the time resisting the urge to hold the other carnivore’s hand when he wasn’t concentrating on not rolling his eyes at Louis’ speech. Now, he’s sitting up in the lighting gallery with Kai and Legoshi while he has some time to spare. “And anyway, if it comes from a carnivore, everyone will just think that we’re jealous of a herbivore doing well,” the mongoose grumbles while fiddling with the spotlight he stands behind.

“Keep it down,” Legoshi hushes the smaller carnivore nervously.

“I don’t care if that asshole hears me!” Kai retorts, and Riz almost growls at the aggression shown by the smaller carnivore, but he manages to stop himself. “Although, being on the stage-crew is more fun than I thought it would be, sorry I said it was useless before I guess.”

Riz chuckles at the half-hearted apology, earning a glare from Kai, although it doesn’t have any real anger in it. He’s beginning to realise that the mongoose is just like that, all bluster and quick temper, but not quite aggressive in the same way that those carnivores in the cafeteria were. “Glad to hear you’ve gotten off your pedestal about it,” Riz grins, nudging Kai.

“Yeah yeah, I’m an asshole, I’m just stressed with the show only being two days away, and I want to do a good job,” Kai admits with a blush of embarrassment. “Just show me how to fix this spotlight, will you Legoshi?”

The wolf gives Riz a subtle smile before nodding and picking up some tools. Riz leans back, supporting his body with his hands to give them something to do. ‘I didn’t realise it’d be this hard to stop myself from touching him all the time,’ he thinks to himself as he watches the wolf carefully explain the different parts of the spotlight and how to diagnose the problem. It’s been almost a week since waking up in bed together, and the two have been spending most of that time finding quiet spots around campus to kiss and touch each other as much as possible. Sometimes it’s just to share a hug and some words of encouragement as Legoshi struggles with the symptoms of meat withdrawal. Sometimes, they kiss each other with a deep passion, Riz taking great pleasure in making Legoshi whine as he runs his large hands over his body. They never go further than that, but Riz can tell that they both want it. 

‘It’s like I can’t get enough of him. Now that I’ve scented him, I want to keep doing it as much as possible. I want everyone to know that he’s mine, and I can’t stop having horny dreams about him. Like how it felt to take care of him like that, and how he scratched my chest with his claws when he got really riled up.’ Riz shifts to subtly rearrange himself before anyone can notice his arousal . ‘Damnit, stop thinking about it, think about something else! Why have you got to do this to me, Legoshi! ’

“Are you serious?!” Kai’s aghast tone brings Riz back into the present, and he concentrates on the conversation. “You don’t actually know the process for why animals are chosen for the Drama club?”

“No?” Legoshi shakes his head and looks at Riz with a confused expression. “Do you know?”

“I know we’re all recruited by invitation only,” Riz says with a shrug. “Other than that, not really.”

“Jeez, you both need more friends,” Kai says, shaking his head. “Everyone here has ‘special circumstances’ or whatever you want to call it. Mina has trypophobia and can’t look in a mirror, Moro thinks that his horns are his guardian angel, and I was adopted by hyenas. It’s to show all the different walks of life apparently, bit fucked up if you think about it though. Being in here basically confirms that you’ve got some big secret.” 

As the mongoose explains, Riz thinks over what about him could have been considered ‘special’ enough to be recruited. ‘It could be that , I guess, but surely they wouldn’t know about that. Right? ’

“Now that I think about it, you’ve probably got some big secret too, Legoshi. Are you hiding something from the rest of us?”

Riz’s thoughts are derailed as Kai speaks again, and he stiffens slightly at the question. Legoshi’s secret is already a touchy subject, even with Riz, and he doesn’t know how the wolf is going to react to such a direct question.

“It’s gotta be to do with that weird smell you’ve had for the past week, right?” Kai asks with a sly look on his face. “Did Riz here get you a bear girlfriend? I bet you’re like, part bear or something! That’s why you’re so big and strong for a wolf! I mean, you carried that box of lights without any issue at all, and even Bill couldn’t do that,” the smaller carnivore theorises quickly, leaping from conclusion to conclusion like one of the dancers practising on the stage below. “Who’s the girl, Riz? I bet you know.”

“I’m sworn to secrecy to protect her honour,” Riz says with another grin.

“Hiding something, you say,” Legoshi says quietly, and Riz can see his hand inching along to one of the lightswitches for the gallery they’re sitting in, although Kai hasn’t seemed to notice. “I do have secrets, it’s true,” the wolf continues, and the smaller carnivore leans in expectantly. Suddenly, all the lights go out in the gallery, prompting a squeak for fear from Kai. “What could it be? ” Legoshi says in that peculiar hiss of his that undoubtedly comes from his grandfather. When he turns the lights back on, both Legoshi and Riz burst out into laughter as Kai complains about being made fun of.

“Hey! Stop goofing off, you three up there!” Louis shouts from the stage, quickly quieting the carnivores, although several giggles still escape their lips.

“Pff, see what I’m saying? Asshole,” Kai says.

“Kind of makes you think about what secret Louis might have,” Legoshi wonders out loud. “Or any of the other animals.” He looks at Riz, and the bear can tell that they’re both thinking of the same person.

~~ Tem ~~

The smell of disturbed soil and freshly blooming flowers fills Tem’s nostrils as he uses the hand hoe to weed around a row of tulips. Haru works silently on the opposite side of the small bed, and he looks at her for a long moment before putting the hoe down and taking off his gloves. “So, we aren’t going to talk about it, then?” Tem asks, prompting the rabbit to stop her task. 

“What do you want to hear?” She replies, continuing with the weeding without looking up.

“You know what I mean,” Tem rolls his eyes, exasperated. “You said that you got those wounds from a carnivore, I told you about my friend who got into a fight with another carnivore on campus, and you said that you’d know him if you met him again,” he reminds her sarcastically. “It’s been days since you met Legoshi, and you just haven’t said anything.”

“I also said that I got hurt by some kind of venom, and I don’t know if you realised, but that guy was a wolf, not a reptile,” Haru mutters. “Anyway, what would you do if I told you that yes, I think your friend tried to devour me and then got into a fight with another carnivore over trying to eat me?”

“Well, I don’t know, I mean,” Tem stutters, caught off guard by the question. “It couldn’t have been Legoshi, right? He freaked out when you just touched him,” Tem adds quickly. ‘There was that moment in the cafeteria, though. He looked like he was going to bite that fox clean in two. It was the protect me, but then again, he’s never acted like that before.’

“Hmph, sounds like you’ve already made your mind up about him,” Haru observes.

“No, wait, I’m sorry,” Tem says again before sighing. “I want to know.”

The rabbit looks up at Tem and gets to her feet. He watches as she walks over to the shed and disappears briefly into it, returning with a lunchbox and sitting down on the bench. Tem retrieves a little of his own food from a pack that he brought from lunch and sits beside her quietly. “It was him. I thought it was the moment I saw him, his fur is very distinctive, but he kept looking nervously at my arm. He’s really bad at being subtle, isn’t he?” Haru’s voice is conflicted, but she still smiles to poke fun at the wolf.

“Ha, yeah, he is,” Tem says, fondness tinged with a hurt deep in his chest that he can’t figure out. “Even though Duncan got devoured, it’s still hard to think about the carnivores around me having the same instincts.”

“We all have instincts,” Haru says. “For what it’s worth, I don’t really blame him. And I don’t think he’s necessarily like, dangerous to be around.”

Tem looks at her in surprise. “You don’t? Why not?”

“I was ready to kick him out of here when I saw him, but he seemed so…scared. I know he feels guilty about it, and he’s so gentle otherwise, like with that beetle he picked up.” Haru chuckles as she speaks, remembering all the strange things Legoshi did and said in just the short amount of time they spent together. “I can see why you’re gay for him,” she adds casually.

“What?!” Tem yelps, confusion, fear, guilt, and denial immediately rearing up in his voice and chest. “I’m not gay!” He says to Haru’s increasing amusement.

“Riiiight, of course not, you just talk about him and Riz all the time, and you got that mask especially for him in case he came here and got overstimulated, and you wouldn’t sleep with me when I offered,” Haru counts on her fingers as she speaks, clearly enjoying teasing the alpaca beside her. “I’d be careful though, I’ve never slept with two guys at the same time, and if they’re both large breed carnivores, you will definitely need to do some serious warmup.”

Tem puts his hands over his ears and tries to hold in the blush burning his face and cheeks. ‘Sex with both Riz and Legoshi at the same time?! They’d split me in two! There has to be a different way of doing it. Why would I be on the bottom, anyway? Wait, why am I even considering this?! ’ Tem’s thoughts race as Haru leers at him from the sidelines.

“You’ve gone all red, you know that?” She says. “Busy thinking about getting down with those two buff guys of yours?”

“Shut up!” Tem says. “I’m not gay, they’re just really good friends who were there for me when I needed it most. Anyway, I told you about this, I didn’t sleep with you because I want to save myself for Els,” the alpaca speaks like he’s reassuring himself, rather than Haru.

“The goat that hasn’t even called or hung out with you since your roommate was devoured?” Haru asks with disbelief.

“We’ve had lunch together!” Tem protests, but he hangs his head. “I really do like her, she’s so pretty, and she makes me laugh, and she’s really kind. But I have all these…other feelings.”

Tem tenses for a second as Haru pats his back gently. “Look, Tem, I have to ask,” Haru begins. “These ‘feelings’ you have about Legoshi and Riz, are they at all related to how we first met?”

An awkward silence blooms between them like the flowers they’ve been working hard to cultivate.

“I don’t–” Tem starts speaking and quickly stops, choking slightly on his words. ‘I can’t deny that I was okay with being ripped apart when I confronted them that evening. I may not have jumped off of this roof, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking still about ending my life like Duncan did, at the hands of a hungry carnivore. Or two.'

“At first, I think it was,” he says eventually. “But I actually feel safer with them than I do with lots of other people, even other herbivores. I haven’t really hung out with many people other than them and you since the Devouring. Most other herbivores just look at me like I’m helpless now. I used to be kinda popular if you’d believe it, but lots of people have just stopped being friendly since I stopped being so happy-go-lucky. I honestly think that Legoshi and Riz would sooner kill and eat someone who’s threatening me than hurt me.” Tem chuckles, despite himself. “And if I tried to get them to eat me, they’d rather bite their own hands off.”

“That sounds like you like them a lot, and the feeling is mutual,” Haru says gently. “But it also sounds like you have feelings for this goat. So, what are you going to do about it?”

“What?” Tem asks.

“What are you going to do about it?” Haru repeats. “It’s clearly making you more depressed to have this weird halfway situation. So the way I see it, you either make your moves on wolf-boy and bear-man, or you give that love letter that you’ve been storing in my shed to Els.”

“I mean, I guess,” Tem replies, taken aback by how easy Haru makes it sound. “I’ll think about it for a bit longer though.”

“And when exactly are you going to make a decision?” Haru asks, poking Tem playfully. “If you don’t give me a date, then I’ll just tell the first one of them that I see next wandering around school.”

“You bitch!” Tem exclaims with a smile. “Don’t fucking do that, or I’ll, I’ll.”

“You’ll what? Ruin my reputation?” Haru stands up from the bench with her hands on her hips and a sly grin on her face. “I’ve already done that myself, idiot, I’m immune.”

“Fine! I’ll decide by the end of the Meteor Festival!” Tem says hurriedly, throwing his hands up in defeat. “I don’t even know if Legoshi and Riz would even want to be like, together, all three of us,” he adds, muttering to himself.

“I don’t know, that wolf doesn’t seem to really understand society’s rules in the same way, I think he’d at least think about it,” Haru muses. “Do you think he’s autistic?”

“Legoshi? Well, yeah.” Tem shrugs. “I got him that mask for a reason you know. I don’t think he knows, or even knows the term. He didn’t really hang out that much with other animals growing up apart from Jack, he said his family history is…complicated.”

When Legoshi had made the comment over lunch one day, it was like Tem could see an ocean of sadness behind the wolf’s eyes, and he hasn’t pried any more since then.

“Relatable?” Haru asks.

“Ha, yeah.”

~~ Legoshi ~~

“You sure you don’t want to come with us, Legoshi?” Collot asks as Miguno looks critically at two different shirts in the mirror of the bathroom, door wide open to allow Durham and Voss to bustle in and out. “We’re gonna go pick up giiiiirls!” The sheepdog adds.

Legoshi sits on the window seat wrapped in several blankets and holding a cup of canine-friendly hot chocolate while his roommates walk around the room getting ready. “No thank you, I’m feeling pretty worn out by club, we’re all working really hard for the performance.”

“But that’s why you should come into the city with us!” Durham says as he exits the bathroom smelling of deodorant. “Loosen up a bit, play some games at the arcade, maybe we could all go to B-Strike!”

“I don’t really recharge from going out, sorry.” Legoshi’s tongue flicks out, and he wrinkles his nose at the foul taste of the Durham’s deodorant. “Eugh,” he says without thinking.

“You don’t like it?” Durham asks

“It’s fine! I just got a taste of it, is all,” Legoshi says quickly, poking out his tongue for emphasis.

“Oh riiight, hybrid stuff. Well, I’m looking for girls that use their noses to smell, not their tongue, so I’m probably still good.” Durham grins before stepping closer and looking critically at Legoshi’s tongue. “Yo, your tongue is splitting!” He says excitedly, prompting the rest of the room to rush over.

“Ih’ it?” Legoshi asks, trying to speak and look at the end of his tongue at the same time.

“Yeah man!” Collot agrees. “It’s also going kinda darker at the ends, I’d say it’s maybe split a few centimetres? Must have happened quickly for you not to notice it!”

“I reckon you could eat your bear girl out so good with that,” Voss says from Durham's shoulder, causing Legoshi to flick his tongue back into his mouth and blush with embarrassment, and the rest of the dorm to snigger. 

“Aren’t you going to wait for Jack?” Legoshi asks, trying to change the subject.

“Nah, he said he needs to study, the nerd,” Voss says with a roll of his eyes. “Well, I’m ready to go!” The fennec announces. “Miguno, just fucking pick a shirt already! You’re such a girl sometimes when we go out, you take so long to get ready!” He adds with a frustrated tone.

“Alright! I’m coming!” The hyena pulls on the shirt he’s holding, looks like he is going to change it once more, and then shakes his head. “Bye Legoshi!” Miguno says as the pack leaves, prompting a chorus of ‘goodbye’s from the rest of them.

After the door closes behind them, silence finally reigns in the room, and Legoshi relaxes. Times like these are few and far between in a room with six people, 4 of them canines no less, and he revels in the quiet of it. After finishing his hot chocolate while looking out of the window, he carefully puts the cup down and walks over to turn the heater on. When that’s done, Legoshi takes out the large floor cushions from the closet and arranges them on the ground to make a large comfortable space directly in front of the now toasty heater. After looking up how reptiles deal with getting too cold, the hybrid found an extensive forum post on how to set up a quick do-it-yourself basking area. ‘Not bad,’ Legoshi thinks as he looks at the setup. Carefully removing and folding his shirt so his scales can breathe, he lays down on his front on the cushions and relaxes, letting out a little groan of pleasure at the glorious heat covering his back.

After about twenty minutes, Legoshi hears the door opening, and Jack’s familiar footsteps enter the room. If it were anyone else, Legoshi might quickly try and tidy everything away, but for once, he allows himself to stay relaxed and just take up space. “Hi,” he says. “How’s study going?”

“Oh, hey there Legoshi, it’s going alright, but I needed a break,” Jack says over his shoulder as he takes his shoes off and puts away his books. Something in the labrador’s tone sounds off, however, and Legoshi frowns at his best friend possibly being in distress.

“I thought your big test was coming up, I expected you to be studying until curfew,” Legoshi says, still laying on his front but looking sideways at Jack’s nearby feet.

“Yeah, I guess I’m not feeling it right now.” Uncharacteristically, the labrador doesn’t start lecturing Legoshi about his own tests and studies.

“Did something happen at the library?” Legoshi prompts.

Jack sighs and sits down on Legoshi’s bunk. “There was someone saying really homophobic stuff there,” he says quietly. “He wasn’t like, harassing anyone, but it just bothered me a lot, so I came back here.”

Legoshi turns onto his side so that he can look at Jack. The usually bubbly dog is now sitting down with a look of quiet tension. ‘He’s pulling at the threads of his pants again, he only does that when he’s really upset,’ Legoshi thinks. Without speaking, he reaches one long arm up and stops Jack from destroying his clothing. Then, he gently tugs the dog’s hand closer, patting the empty space on the floor in front of him. “It’ll probably be four hours before the guys come back,” he murmurs.

“Well…alright, but I need to change out of my uniform first,” Jack replies, making both of their tails wag.

After a minute of the sounds of rustling cloth, Jack settles down with his back to Legoshi, the hybrid’s large body shielding him from the heater. Legoshi snakes his arm underneath the smaller carnivore’s neck so he can wrap Jack up in his arms. When the labrador starts to shake slightly with tears, Legoshi squeezes him tightly and rubs the underside of his muzzle over the top of Jack’s head, anything to try and comfort his best friend. He presses small kisses onto the back of Jack’s head and uses his incisors to gently comb through the labrador’s short hairs like they used to do as pups. After a minute, the shaking subsides slightly, and Jack lets out a sigh.

“Sorry,” he says quietly.

“Don’t apologise for crying,” Legoshi murmurs, continuing to groom Jack’s fur. “You should talk about what’s upsetting you, it’s healthy.”

“Hypocrite,” Jack says, and then cringes back. “Wait, no, I didn’t mean that.”

Legoshi cuts him off by reaching over and enveloping one of Jack’s hands in his own. Silently, he turns it over so he can see the other carnivore’s palm. ‘We’re so different. Even his claws are smaller than mine. I wish I was more like him,’ he thinks to himself. “You’re right,” Legoshi says aloud. “I don’t talk about what upsets me, and I should. It feels like I have this well of darkness in me, and I’m stuck at the bottom just looking up at the lights that pass by the top. If I try to empty the well, though, the darkness is just going to stain everyone who touches it, like you’ll become tainted.”

“I’m not some pure animal who needs to be protected from the world, Legoshi,” Jack mumbles. “I don’t think anyone is.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“If I tell you what upset me today, will you tell me something that’s been upsetting you?” 

“Yeah, okay.”

They lay there for a few more moments of silence before Jack speaks again. “I never really thought of people saying homophobic things as that hurtful to me. I mean, I know it’s bad, but I never got personally upset,” he says. “But earlier, I realised that they were saying things about me, as well as you and Riz, and I just felt so scared they were going to see that it was upsetting me. I guess it’s pretty self-centred that I didn’t get so upset until it effected me, huh?”

“I don’t really know about being self-centred, you’re the most generous guy I know. You’re always offering to help people study, even me, and I suck at school.” Legoshi smiles at the memory of all the times his best friend has tried to teach him complex concepts and run up against Legoshi’s brain. “I’m sorry those guys were so upsetting. If you want, me and Riz could go with you to the library next time? I don’t really like being confrontational, but I could definitely beat them up if they threatened you.”

“Goshi! Don’t do that!” Jack exclaims, and Legoshi chuckles at the scandalised tone. “But thank you anyway. Maybe it’d be nice if you came with me, as long as you promise not to get me kicked out of the library.”

“Okay.”

“Your turn,” Jack says.

‘I can’t tell him everything, I just can’t. It would kill him,’ Legoshi thinks, thinking of dead dingos. ‘But maybe a little bit wouldn’t hurt.’ The hybrid clears his throat and steels himself. “I met that herbivore that I attacked a little bit ago, she’s in the same club as Tem, and I couldn’t stop thinking about eating her,” Legoshi says. As he speaks, Jack turns his hand around and intertwines their fingers, bringing Legoshi’s close to his chest. “I think there’s something really wrong with me, and I’m afraid that I’m going to hurt Tem. I mean, I thought I was just craving carnivore meat, but maybe it’s both? Maybe it’s just Haru, but I can’t tell. Whoever heard of a carnivore that wants to eat other carnivores? I’m surprised that you even feel safe around me.”

Jack lets go of Legoshi’s hand and turns around to face the larger carnivore, looking up at his face. “Where did you get these?” He asks, running a hand through the fur on his muzzle and revealing several small points in which pale green scales are beginning to form.

“I, uh.” Legoshi’s gaze goes to the side, avoiding Jack’s eyes. “I got really overwhelmed when I met Tem and Haru, and I was trying to block out all the smells, but I must have gotten my claws stuck.”

“You need to be more careful, it’s not good when you hurt yourself.”

“I know…”

Without warning, Jack brings his muzzle further up and kisses Legoshi, gently but purposefully shifting his hand to the back of the larger carnivore’s head.

“Warn me when you do that!” Legoshi splutters after they break. “I could really hurt you with my venom!”

“I couldn’t smell any, and I could smell your medicine anyway,” Jack dismisses. “Anyway, I’m going to keep kissing you until you get it through your head that I trust you, and I love you, and I’ll stay beside you through anything.”

“Alright,” Legoshi says reluctantly. “What are we, anyway? Like is there a word for this? Because right now, I want to do so many things that aren’t just ‘friend’ things. I’ve talked to Riz about it, and he’s okay with us, but he wants to know if things change. He even said he’s okay with us having sex.”

Jack blushes deeply, despite having been the one to initiate the kiss in the first time. “Well, I’ve been doing some research online, and I think the term is ‘queer-platonic’? Like not quite platonic, but not really romantic, if that sounds okay to you?”

“Mm, that works.” Legoshi nods. “Because like, I love you, and I would like to call you my boyfriend, but not in the same way that Riz and I are boyfriends, if that makes sense? I love you, but I don’t necessarily want to have kids with you, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it. And I’m still probably going to date other people if they’re okay with us being sort-of boyfriends, if I ever get a break from school that is…” Jack trails off, and Legoshi can tell that he’s thinking about the study he failed to catch up on in the library.

“Hey, don’t think about school,” he says gently. “Can I help distract you?” Legoshi adds, licking his lips slightly and shivering at the taste of his best friend on the air. The hybrid shifts slightly, pulling Jack closer to his body and letting one hand wander down the labrador’s back, smiling as he feels the other carnivore’s tail begin to wag.

“Here?” Jack whispers.

“No one will be here for hours,” Legoshi replies. “But we don’t have to if you don’t want.”

“No no, don’t stop,” Jack says quickly, blushing even more at his own reaction. “A hot sexy guy with his shirt off has been cuddling me for half an hour. You know I want to.”

Legoshi grins, showing off the rows of mismatched fangs in his mouth, and Jack shivers in anticipation. Quickly, Legoshi’s hands run further down and cup Jack’s ass, giving it a tentative squeeze in an attempt to figure out how to best handle his best friend. For his part, Jack presses a kiss onto Legoshi’s lips and digs his fingertips into the hybrid’s back. The pressure of Jack’s tiny claws is extremely pleasant, and Legoshi lets out a soft moan as they drag down his shoulderblades. Not to be outdone, the hybrid leaves one hand on Jack’s ass, and moves the other up to play with his ears.

“Hey, no fair!” Jack whines, breaking their kiss to look at Legoshi angrily. “Why is it that I hardly ever want to touch myself, but after that night I’m thinking about it all the time?”

“Maybe you just needed permission? After all, you are a very good boy,” Legoshi teases.

Jack’s blush increases, as does his frown, and he even bares his teeth slightly. “I’ll make you a good boy!” He growls, prompting a laugh from Legoshi. “And don’t laugh! I fucked Riz and I’ll fuck you too!” He adds.

“Ooooo, Jack is swearing!” Legoshi says. Despite his teasing, the prospect of Jack doing half of what he did to Riz that night is tantalising to say the least. His stomach begins to feel hot, and his cock is growing painfully hard against his pants.

“Shut up!” Jack says, wrestling fruitlessly with Legoshi’s hands, which now grip his wrists easily. “Stop playing with me and let me fuck you!” He yaps.

“What are you gonna do about it?” Legoshi dares.

Thinking about it for a few seconds, Jack’s angry expression resolves into a firmer one. Then, in a move that takes Legoshi fully by surprise, the labrador lunges forward and locks his jaws around his throat. With the heat of Jack’s breath and the pressure of his fangs, Legoshi lets out a groaning, hissing moan that he is unable to stop, and he releases Jack’s wrists to clap his hands over his mouth. The smaller carnivore isn’t piercing skin, but the promise of going further turns Legoshi into a hot mess, melting instantly under the touch. “Fuuuuck,” he whines.

Using this advantage, Jack clambers on top of Legoshi, only releasing his hold on the larger carnivore’s neck in order to stand up over him and take off his pants and underwear. “Take off your pants,” Jack orders breathlessly, and Legoshi obeys instantly. “Good boy,” the labrador adds with a smirk before settling down onto Legoshi’s lap.

The sensation of their cocks brushing together makes Legoshi groan again in pleasure, and he reaches down to touch Jack. The heat from his basking has energised Legoshi, and his cock twitches at the thought of helping his best friend get off yet again. He wants to please Jack, to serve him, to be used by him. The thoughts would normally freak him out, but here, he feels safe and eager to explore them. As he reaches out, however, the smaller carnivore grips his wrist and leans down, pinning it in place.

“No, bad boy,” Jack pants, only just keeping himself together as well. “Just, hah, stay.”

Legoshi stays still, no matter how much he aches to rock his hips back and forth. He watches in silent torture as Jack rifles through the pocket of his discarded pants and pulls out a small colourful square package with a winking wolf on the logo. Legoshi doesn’t move, even as his best friend opens the square and retrieves two smaller squares, both made of some kind of foil. “Is that, a condom?” Legoshi asks.

“Yeah, I got a bunch from the nurse’s office,” Jack replies. “We don’t have to, but I kind of wanted to try, uh, having you, inside me…” his voice trails off, and he lapses into a blushing silence.

“Will that be comfortable?” Legoshi asks. In truth, the idea sounds incredible, but he isn’t going to do something that’s only going to give himself pleasure.

“Yeah, I’ve been, um. Experimenting.”

“Experimen-”

“LOOK DO YOU WANT TO OR NOT,” Jack says, much louder than he meant to, and now it’s his turn to put his hands over his mouth.

Legoshi, blinks then nods enthusiastically, and the labrador goes about methodically opening the packets, one of lube, and the other a condom, before shuffling back to slide the condom over the larger carnivore’s cock. Legoshi closes his eyes and tries not to squirm at the feeling of being slicked down with lube, biting his lip to stop himself from making any more noise. He’s sure that the rooms on either side of this one heard his moaning from before, and he’s determined not to draw any more unwanted attention. When he feels a hot pressure on the end of his cock, Legoshi’s eyes open wide to see Jack lowering himself down onto Legoshi. 

‘Wow, he’s just going for i- fuck that feels good,’ Legoshi thinks as his brain is overtaken with the feeling of warmth enveloping him. ‘He’s so pretty, he’s SO pretty, I want to be good for him. I want to make him feel good.’

“Is this okay?” Jack asks, words escaping through gritted teeth.

“Yes! Is it okay for you? Are you okay?” Legoshi asks, suddenly panicked.

“Ah! Don’t move!” Jack yelps as the large carnivore stirs beneath him. “I’m really good, Legoshi, I’m trying not to moan or bark, which is REALLY difficult with you inside me and wriggling around. I’m trying to be quiet.” The last part sounds to Legoshi like Jack is talking to himself more than Legoshi.

Jacks balls lower onto Legoshi’s belly as he takes all of the hybrid’s cock inside him, and both carnivores take a moment to bask in the pleasure they are sharing. It’s like nothing Legoshi has ever experienced, or even been able to think about. It’s not just the physical sensation, but the feeling of being this close to his best friend, of helping him forget about the troubles of the world even for a moment. “I love you,” Legoshi breathes out.

“I love you too,” Jack replies. “You want me to start moving? Are you going to be nice and still for me?”

“Yes please.”

Jack lets out a huff, halfway between a moan and a laugh. “Good boy,” he says. 

Legoshi lets out a loud hiss as Jack begins to move, modulating into a low growl that he can’t stop himself from making. The feeling of Jack’s heat around his cock and the labrador’s hands on his chest to steady himself makes his skin feel on fire with arousal. Jack is tight, though he’s clearly been ‘experimenting’ quite a bit with how easily he’s able to take Legoshi inside him. An image of his best friend fingering himself in the shower rises in the hybrid’s mind, and he can’t help the gentle bucking of his hips in response. “Sorry!” He says through his teeth.

“Not that I don’t– oh fucking hell, ah. Appreciate the sounds you’re making, Goshi– Mnngh, but do you think you can try and keep it down?” Jack huffs and wheezes his way through his sentences while riding Legoshi, tongue lolling out the front of his mouth.

“It’s either I don’t move, or I don’t make noises,” Legoshi answers, trying with all his might to hold both responses in his body.

“Fine, you can move a bit, but be gentle,” Jack allows, causing Legoshi’s tail to wag.

Carefully, Legoshi brings his hands up to Jack’s shoulders and pulls him closer, angling his own hips and legs into a slightly more comfortable position. He cranes his upper body forward so he can kiss Jack, licking the labrador’s teeth in a show of affection and submission. He doesn’t quite understand why he’s doing it, but it feels good, and that’s what counts. All the while, Jack is bouncing his hips up and down on Legoshi’s cock, pulling more and more of the tension from his muscles and turning it into pressure in his crotch. Starting slowly but quickly matching Jack’s rhythm, Legoshi begins to thrust into his best friend, the force of their combined movement giving a glorious impact. With each passing moment, they melt further and further into each other until Legoshi’s addled brain can no longer tell exactly where the boundaries of their bodies are.

“I think I’m close,” Legoshi whispers, his breathing shallow.

“You think?” Jack replies with a whine. “I definitely am. If I touched myself I would blow right over you.”

“Ha, gross,” Legoshi laughs for half a second before himself whining.

“Hey you swallowed it last time, I didn’t think that it getting on your fur would be a probleeeeem!” Jack’s voice goes up in pitch at the last word as Legoshi’s claws dig into his hips and the hybrid begins thrusting harder.

“You can touch yourself,” Legoshi murmurs as he feels his orgasm approaching quickly. “ I want to see your face when you cum this time .”

“You fucking dog , Legoshi,” Jack growls, one hand bracing on Legoshi’s shoulder and one disappearing down to his own cock. “I am getting you back for this one day,” the labrador adds. “FUCK it feels good, you feel so good filling me up.”

Legoshi keeps fucking Jack, and as much as he wants to, he doesn’t increase his speed or force. The pressure in his cock is painful at this point, a tension that can only be relieved by getting past the breaking point. As the wave of pleasure rises, Legoshi looks at his best friend in awe. Jack’s eyes are closed in concentration, letting drool drip off of his tongue, and pink tinges his cheeks. It’s the face of someone who isn’t thinking about exams, or tests, or study, just this moment. Both of their senses are turned wholly onto each other and the pleasure they are sharing, nothing else matters in the world. Legoshi shudders as he feels the wave crashing through him, his thrusting becomes erratic as he begins to cum inside his best friend. At the same time, a growing whine in Jack’s throat bubbles up and he arches his back in pleasure as he shoots a rope of cum up Legoshi’s chest and stomach, swearing black and blue as he does.

Suddenly, the door to the room unlocks, and all of the roommates who were supposed to be in town playing at the arcade and eating icecream bluster into the room in a whirlwind. Legoshi tenses immediately at the noise, and desperately tries to sit up in order to protect Jack’s decency. With the force of movement, the labrador yelps in his lap and grabs both of his shoulders.

“Let's just get the card and go ba- OH MY FUCKING REX.” Collot’s words quickly turn into shouting as he turns the corner.

Jack screams at the sight of all of his roommates walking in on the sight of him getting plowed by his best friend.

“What’s going on?” Durham asks as he too walks around. “HOLY HEAVEN AND HELL WHAT THE FUCK GUYS!”

When Miguno enters last with Voss on his shoulders, both carnivores stand with their mouths open for a second before the hyena drags the bedclothes off of Legoshi’s bunk, throws them over the pair, and pushes the canines out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He opens the door quickly after, but doesn’t walk back in. “YOU HAVE TWENTY MINUTES,” he shouts before slamming the door again. Just as Legoshi begins to untense, the door opens yet again. “SORRY FOR SLAMMING THE DOOR. AND FOR SHOUTING.” And the door is shut again, albeit gently this time. 

After what feels like both a year and only a few seconds, Legoshi shakes off the bedcovers.

Jack sighs, defeated by the world. “Why does this keep happening?” He asks pitifully.

“I don’t know, but we should probably have a shower,” Legoshi answers.

“Doesn’t it take a long time for you to be able to, you know, pull out?” Jack asks.

“What?” Legoshi looks at his best friend in confusion.

“You know, like, knotting,” Jack says, strangely embarrassed despite just riding Legoshi.

“That’s only like five minutes, all that ‘knotting for hours’ stuff is only in porn,” Legoshi dismisses.

“So what are we supposed to do until then?”

Legoshi shrugs. “I don’t know, think of excuses?”

“I don’t want to spend the moments right after I lose my virginity thinking of ways to explain the situation to my roommates,” Jack says flatly. “This is supposed to be special.”

“I mean, we could kiss?” Legoshi suggests.

The smaller canine’s expression breaks into a small smile and a small giggle escapes his lips. “Sounds good to me,” he says.

Chapter Text

~~ Legoshi ~~

“Okay, I get you’ve had stuff going on, but like, what the fuck?” Voss’s voice is filled with overtones and undertones that set Legoshi’s teeth on edge. There’s confusion, suspicion, and a little disgust, all mixed into a horrid miasma that Legoshi can almost taste.

Him and Jack are sitting side by side on the floor, with the rest of the room arranged in a semi-circle in front of them. None of them are sitting on the cushions, and the window is wide open to ‘make the room not smell of jizz’, as Collot so eloquently put it. Legoshi shivers under his blankets and looks mournfully at the now cooling heater as all the hot air leaves the room. With the fennec fox’s words, his gaze drifts back to the other animals, and a small, hot coal of annoyance begins to glow in his chest.

“Why is this an interrogation?” Legoshi asks bluntly, narrowing his already narrow eyes.

“It’s not an ‘interrogation’,” Durham protests, a touch of discomfort in his voice.

“Of course it is!” Voss says loudly. “We just walked in and you two were fucking on our floor .” He emphasises the words with a wrinkle of his nose, turning Legoshi’s annoyance into a flickering flame of anger. “Since when were you actually gay?” He asks Legoshi.

“What do you mean ‘actually’ gay?” Legoshi retorts, the merest hint of a hiss on the edge of his voice.

“Well I know we joked around about you being gay, but I didn’t think you actually were,” Voss says. “I’m assuming the bear we keep smelling on you is actually a guy, then?” He adds, still with that tone of judgement.

“Yeah, he is, do you have a fucking problem with that?” Legosh’s monotone dips into a lower register, just shy of growling, lips pulling back a fraction of a centimetre. Bobbing to the forefront of Legoshi’s mind is a vision of Jack pulling out the threads of his pants and crying in his arms. “Why did you come back so soon, anyway?”

“Whoa, Legoshi, no need to be like that,” Collot says nervously, looking between the large and tiny carnivores. “Miguno forgot his bus card, which we were all going to use, so we had to come back to grab it.”

“Yeah, actually, I do have a problem with that,” Voss pipes up, crossing his arms. “Especially if you want to see him here. I don’t want to shower somewhere you’ve sucked some dude’s dick in.”

“Voss, that’s a bit,” Miguno begins.

“Is it unreasonable?” Voss insists, still glaring at Legoshi. 

“Well, I mean, just your tone, man,” the hyena tries.

“Not so pressing me for details if it’s a guy, are you Voss?” Legoshi observes so coldly that the tone of the room drops by several degrees. “If I was having sex with some girl here, you’d probably be trying to get all sorts of stories out of me to laugh at, but if it’s a guy, it’s what, gross or something?”

“Well yeah I’m not gay!” The fennec says, exasperated.

“Why do you keep saying like that!?” Legoshi growls, the sound echoing through the room and making everyone freeze. Although he usually tries to make himself smaller, now, Legoshi is extremely aware that he is the largest and strongest animal in there. It feels like he could command fear or respect in this moment, and it doesn’t entirely feel good. “You keep saying it like it’s a bad thing. What’s so bad about it?”

“I don’t want to share a room with someone who wants to fuck me, that’s all,” Voss says. “I don’t want to share a room with a girl, either, it’s the same thing.”

“No one wants to have sex with you, Voss!” This time it’s Jack that has an outburst of emotions, and it surprises everyone present. “I certainly don’t! And the way you keep being such a dick about things, it’s going to make no one else want to either, even if they were girls! Just because Legoshi and I KISS, and HAVE SEX, suck each other’s DICKS,” he puts extra emphasis on the words just because it makes Voss visibly uncomfortable, “doesn’t mean that we want to do that with you! And it’s not just because you’re straight, it’s because you’re an arrogant prick! It’s not like you don’t have secrets either!”

Voss’s eyes narrow, and his teeth bare in a snarl at the labrador. “Oh you want to go there, Jack? That’s fucking low, just really fucking low. Exactly what I’d expect from a fucking bitch like you.”

As Voss insults Jack, Legoshi’s eyes widen, and the rest of the room gasps in shock. The word is a horrible insult to canines, especially females. When used against gay males, it’s almost exclusively against bottoms, and doubles up on homophobia and sexism. Legoshi can feel the growl building inside of him, and the dull peppermint taste of his antivenom tablet begins to be replaced by the bitter flavour of venom.

“Take that back, NOW VOS–” Legoshi begins, the hot fire of rage beginning to burst through him, venom bubbling into thick goo on his gums as it reacts with the remnants of the tablet.

“I’M TRANS,” Miguno screams, stopping Legoshi mid-lunge and preventing instant bloodshed. All heads turn to him in surprise, and the hyena begins cackling nervously under the attention. “I’m trans! And probably gay too! And I’ve known for ages! So it’s fine that Legoshi and Jack are queer too!” Miguno babbles.

“You’re WHAT ?!” Voss shouts.

“Shouldn’t you be in the girls’ dorm, if you're becoming a girl, then?” Collot asks hesitantly.

“But we’ve all showered together,” Durham says, furrowing his brow in a state of absolute shock and confusion. “I’ve seen your– I mean– We’ve all seen each other naked…haven’t we?”

“No, Collot, I’m a trans man, like I was born female but I’m male,” Miguno says, but blushes in embarrassment before continuing. “And most hyenas are really androgynous naturally, like most females look like they have penises anyway, so that’s why you shouldn’t be surprised. I don’t want to get into that, but ye–” Miguno stops speaking as Jack leaps over and pulls him into a hug.

“Thank you,” the labrador says quietly. “I don’t know why I did that, but it just felt right.”

“Aw,” Collot coos. “Bro love.”

Jack rolls his eyes and stops hugging Miguno to turn back to the other carnivores. “Legoshi and I have known each other since we were pups, we’ve helped each other, protected each other, is it that hard to accept that we love each other too?” Legoshi sees his best friend glaring again at Voss, and takes the moment to settle back and calm himself. He could too easily do serious damage to both Voss, and anyone who got his venom on them accidentally. “And yeah, we do gay stuff, because both of us like men, and especially each other, and sorry for fucking on the floor cushions, but I’m pretty sure that every one of us has masturbated in the bathroom at least once in the years we’ve lived in the same dorm, and that’s just that.”

Legoshi beams at his best friend while the rest of the room looks at everything except each other in shame. When Jack gets riled up, there’s very little that can stop him, and seeing him advocate for himself gives Legoshi a lovely happy glow inside him that makes his ears dance and his tail to wag.

“And frankly,” Jack continues. “I don’t want to be around someone who thinks it’s ever okay to use slurs like that. Either you apologise, Voss, or I’m going to ask to be transferred to a different dorm.”

All eyes turn to Voss, and the fennec squirms on his seat under their magnifying glass intensity. “FINE,” he says. “I’m sorry, Jack, and I’m sorry to both of you for being weird about you being gay, and Miguno, whatever. Happy?”

Legoshi and Jack share a look between each other and Miguno. It is possibly the worst apology they’ve heard that can technically count as one. Legoshi swallows bitter venom and turns to Voss. “Why exactly are you sorry?” He asks.

“Fucking, I don’t know, I don’t want to lose my friends,” Voss answers lamely. “I said something really fucked up, but I’m not going to deny that I have stupid opinions about some things.”

“Yeah, they are stupid,” Jack agrees coldly, folding his arms. “Well, that’s that, then,” he adds, standing up and climbing into Legoshi’s bunk before closing the curtains.

Legoshi very deliberately stands and walks to the bathroom to wipe his mouth of the vaguely peppermint-flavoured sludge setting around his lips and gums. When he returns, Voss’s curtains are closed and he is nowhere to be seen, and Miguno is in his bunk but playing his electric guitar very quietly with his headphones plugged in. Collot and Durham are still sitting on the floor, but they’ve gotten a pack of cards out and are playing a game that Legoshi doesn’t recognise. The hybrid pops another tablet into his mouth and chews it in case this evening’s stress makes him dream of Devourings and floods his mouth with venom in his sleep. Then, he crawls through the curtains to find Jack distracting himself with watching some video about history on silent. Before he goes to sleep, Legoshi flicks open his phone.

The thought of seeing Tem after this horrible end to the evening makes Legoshi’s tail wag and thump against the back of Jack’s legs.

Legoshi stirs slightly as he feels Jack’s back press up against his own so they can share a modicum of warmth and contact.

~~ Riz ~~

Riz uses a claw to pick at a small divot in the bench that he and Tem are sitting at, slowly pulling a splinter free and flicking it onto the ground. ‘Legoshi should be here by now,’ he thinks, glancing around to try and find the familiar figure towering over most other animals. Ever since their messages the night before, a tension has stolen over his body. His jaw aches from clenching it in his sleep, and it’s been harder than usual to focus on his classes. The edge of a migraine has been poking the back of his eye since he woke up, and it made it that much harder to take his pills this morning.

“You know, I’m pretty sure we have to pay for any property damage we cause,” Tem teases.

“Ha, yeah,” Riz tries to force a smile, but today, he can’t manage it.

Seeing this reaction, the alpaca’s expression turns to one of concern. “Are you okay, Riz?” He asks. “Did something happen between you and Legoshi?”

“No, why do you ask?” Riz’s brows furrow in confusion.

“Well, you keep looking around,” Tem says, more hesitantly now. “I thought that you were anxious about meeting up with him or something.”

“Oh, no, nothing bad happened between us,” Riz clarifies. Just then, a familiar scent catches on the breeze, and he turns his head in its direction to look for its origin. It’s a mix of wolf fur, cheap deodorant, and more recently, a strong overtone of mint and sour candy. Soon after the scent reaches Riz, its owner comes slinking into view from around the side of a large group of herbivores blocking the path. ‘He’s slouching more than he has in a while, I hope he got some sleep after all that.’

Legoshi walks like he’s trying to turn himself invisible as he approaches the bench Riz and Tem are sitting at, and it makes the bear’s hands clench into fists. As he gets near, the lanky wolf raises his gaze hesitantly to meet Riz’s, but avoids Tem’s altogether. When he sits down, Riz puts a hand on his leg and gives it a gentle squeeze under the cover of the bench.

“What’s up, pup?” Riz asks gently. “Tough morning?”

Legoshi nods, bringing his own hand to hold Riz’s. “Everything’s just really tense now,” he says wretchedly. 

“Did something happen with Jack? Or your roommates?” Tem asks.

Riz shares a look with Legoshi. ‘ He said that he didn’t want to be open ,’ Riz thinks. ‘But it’s Tem we’re talking about, I mean, we all cuddled together for Rex’s sake.’

“Guys,” Tem cuts in with a tone that’s slightly harsher than what Riz expects, taking him aback slightly. “You keep on sharing meaningful looks, and it’s not like you have to tell me everything, but I am feeling a little sidelined here. You know that I’m not going to judge either of you for things, right?”

Riz keeps his mouth shut and lets Legoshi answer, noting how the wolf’s grip on his hand gets stronger. 

“I’m gay,” Legoshi says in a voice more fitting for a mouse than a large breed carnivore. “My roommates found out, and one of them was…it wasn’t good. I really didn’t want to be awkward hanging out with you two, but it’s been really hard.” The wolf’s voice cracks at the end of his sentence, and Riz lets go of his hand in order to pull him closer, not caring about what other people think at this point. 

Looking at Tem, Riz searches the alpaca’s face for anything negative, no matter how much he believes it won’t be there. ‘I have to be vigilant, even with our friends. For Legoshi,’ he thinks.

Tem’s mouth forms a small ‘o’ as several different emotions pass over his countenance, each so fleeting that Riz can’t discern them all. Finally, they land on a look of grim determination. “Which one was it?” Tem asks in a low tone of voice. “I bet it was that fucking fox, right? I thought he had a weird vibe when we had lunch together, little shit.”

A chuckle escapes Riz’s chest as a small grin appears on his face. He knew that Tem wouldn’t be homophobic, but he should have guessed at this reaction. The alpaca has never been one to keep quiet about things he thinks are wrong. Riz thinks back to the first time they all shared a meal together, and how Tem reacted when he heard about Louis’ treatment of the carnivores in Drama club. ‘I wonder how things would have gone if I hadn’t grabbed him,’ he thinks to himself. 

“Don’t go and report him, please,” Legoshi says.

“I won’t, but you know I want to!” Tem fumes. “I just want to know who I should avoid, and maybe whose food I should sprinkle some cyclamen in,” he adds cooly. “We have some blooming in Gardening club, you know, I could ask Haru for some, it wouldn’t be hard.”

Riz’s eyebrows shoot up as he hears Tem’s plan to poison another student. Since ‘officially’ becoming boyfriends the bear has been looking up different flowers that he could get Legoshi for the meteor festival, and a surprising number of them are toxic to canines. ‘How does Tem know which ones are bad for them, though? ’ He thinks to himself. ‘Has he been doing his own research? Or is that something you need to know just as part of his club? ’

“Tem!” Legoshi gasps, properly looking the alpaca in the eyes for the first time today. “You can’t do that!”

“Who says?” Tem counters flippantly.

“Uh, the law!?”

“You carnivores go around biting each other all the time! Why can’t little ol’ me get my own in as well?” Tem asks, a wide grin adorning his face. “I don’t even have horns, so I gotta make do with sneakier tactics.”

“Still, maybe not the best idea,” Riz rumbles. “Not that it isn’t tempting, though.”

“Boo! You’re not supposed to be reasonable too, Riz!” Tem protests.

“I guess I’m just hard wired to be the adult in the room.” Riz shrugs, ignoring Tem poking his tongue out at him.

“So, I can assume that the smell of bear on you was Riz, right?” Tem asks Legoshi, causing both carnivores to blush.

“Uh, yeah,” Legoshi stutters.

“OOOoooOOOoo,” Tem coos teasingly. “Where’d you even find the privacy to get down and dirty with the big bear?”

Riz tries to inhale and laugh at the same time, causing him to choke slightly, coughing hard and attracting even more stares. “That’s private information,” he manages after getting his breath back. Riz turns to look at Legoshi, letting go of the wolf’s side and finally opening the box of food that he has been meaning to eat for the past fifteen minutes. “Eat up,” he says with a smile. “I got extra eggs for you.”

A little of the hunted look has faded from Legoshi’s expression, although not as much as Riz would have liked. Worry still clenches it’s strong fingers around the bear’s heart, and even as his boyfriend starts, yes, wolfing down his food, he can still see that same spark of anxiety in Tem’s eyes as well. ‘I hope to Rex that nothing else goes wrong for him. I don’t know if he can take it,’ Riz thinks to himself. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t think I could take it either.’

~~ Legoshi ~~

Seeing Riz and Tem was good, especially being able to feel the gentle reassurance from Riz in the form of his constant physical affection. Legoshi smiles to himself at the memory of the bear’s strong arms pulling him close when he was about to cry. ‘He’s so much more…huggy than me. Is that a word? Huggy? It’s not like I don’t like it, but it just doesn’t come as naturally to me. Maybe it’s because I’m not a full blooded canine, all the other guys seem to have this instinct for it, ’ Legoshi thinks as he scribbles lighting cues onto the script in front of him. ‘ I want to give that back to him more, but it’s so hard to be open about it. I mean, look what happened last night.’ His face falls from a smile to his usual neutral expression as he thinks about his interaction with his roommates since being caught in the act with Jack. Voss and Collot had both left for breakfast before the rest of the pack, and only Collot had said something before doing so. Their pack bond is hanging by a thread, and Legoshi feels an awful sinking feeling like it’s his fault.

“Aw, and you were just getting happy about something,” Dom says from beside him, half-constructed costume in hand. “Is something bothering you?” The peafowl gives him a smile, and Legoshi feels for a moment like he could fall into his deep blue eyes.

‘Wait what? I can’t have a thing for EVERY herbivore I’m friends with, get control of yourself,’ Legoshi thinks to himself before shaking his head briefly. “We’re friends, right?” He asks instead. It’s just them backstage, as all the rest of the crew have jobs in other parts of the theatre to attend to. Out of all the stage crew, Dom is the one that seems most comfortable in Legoshi’s presence, and Legoshi is grateful that the peafowl never seems to expect conversation from him.

Dom raises one eyebrow and puts his sewing down to one side before turning to slightly face Legoshi more. “Yeah, I mean we’ve known each other in Drama club for almost four years, and I consider you my friend,” he says slowly.

“It’s just that someone I thought was my friend found something out about me, and now he doesn’t want to be around me,” Legoshi mumbles, looking back down at the script and smoothing it out on his legs a few times. “It’s made it hard to tell, I guess.”

“Can I ask what it was?” Dom asks, his voice now quite gentle.

“I’m, uh,” Legoshi begins. ‘I don’t want to make trouble in club as well, but Tem was okay with it, so maybe it’ll be okay? ’ He thinks to himself. “I’m gay,” he says lamely.

“Oh! I mean, Riz told me already that you and him got down and dirty,” Dom chuckles. “So am I.”

“Oh right," Legoshi kicks himself for getting worked up over nothing before finally parsing the last part of Dom's sentence. "You are too?!” Legoshi asks, whipping his head around to stare at the herbivore in confusion.

“Uuh, yeah! I thought everyone knew!” Dom laughs, shoulders shaking properly.

“I didn’t! I’m so unobservant,” Legoshi sighs, but his tail begins to wag slightly as the peafowl pats him on the shoulder.

“It’s alright, you’re often in your own little world anyway.” Dom’s kindly smile turns into a mischievous one, and he turns his pat into a nudge. “So, any guys you’re hot for apart from the brown bear?” He asks with a wink.

“Um, Riz and I are boyfriends,” Legoshi says, the smile returning hesitantly to his lips. “And my best friend Jack and I are kind of boyfriends too. I don’t know if that’s allowed, though.”

“Oh, you’re poly?” Dom asks. “That’s totally allowed! I mean, technically nothing queer is actually allowed since we can’t get married or anything, but as long as everything’s consensual, it’s totally cool.”

“Poly?” Legoshi’s brows furrow as he tastes the word. “Jack and I are in a ‘queerplatonic relationship’,” he continues, remembering the wording from last night. “But Riz and I are proper boyfriends. Romantically, I mean.”

Dom nods along sagely. “I get it, labels are good up to a point.”

Legoshi nods, and looks down at the script in his hands, a sudden jolt of realisation goes through his body. “Shit! I need to run this by Louis before the show!” He exclaims, jumping to his feet.

“Wooow, Legoshi swears now!” Dom laughs. “Well go on! Don’t want to keep his Antlerness waiting!”

With a nod and a smile to the peafowl, Legoshi starts striding away in the direction of Louis’ office, a little bit of confidence coming back into his step. When he reaches the office, he knocks smartly on the door and waits patiently for an answer. After a minute with no response, he sniffs the air and carefully flicks his tongue out, making sure that no one else can see him as he does. The tip of Legoshi’s tongue has split a few extra millimetres, since his roommates pointed it out, but all of his bodily changes seem to be slowing down as more time passes since he ate most of that dingo. ‘Louis is definitely in there, but he’s not answering, I hope he’s okay,’ Legoshi thinks nervously. After another knock goes unanswered, the hybrid steels himself and opens the door, walking into the room ready to take the star actor to the infirmary. When he sees bandages and painkillers being shoved away, Legoshi’s eyes widen.

“Don’t you ever knock? Or is that not something canines are taught when you’re young?” Louis asks angrily, pinning Legoshi in place with his glare.

“I did knock but you didn’t respond, I thought something might have happened, I’ll go now,” Legoshi begins to babble, and manages to take a step back towards the door. Before he can leave, Louis stands up on what Legoshi is certain is an injured leg and lunges forward, shutting the door before Legoshi can escape.

“You’re here now, so you may as well tell me what you came here for,” Louis says, turning on his heel and striding towards his seat before sitting down and fixing Legoshi with an impatient stare.

“Uh, okay,” Legoshi says, reluctantly walking away from his escape route. As he begins to explain the lighting choices he wants to run by Louis, however, he begins to talk more confidently, even standing up slightly straighter.

“Your claws are very threatening when you wave them around like that,” Louis’ voice cuts through his monologue, and Legoshi immediately puts them behind his back. “They seem sharper these days too, one might easily assume that you’re trying to be intimidating.”

“I’m sorry! I cut them every day, but they grow back by the afternoon,” Legoshi apologises. ‘They’ve also gotten longer, and more curved,’ he thinks to himself. ‘It’s like my body is changing just so I’ll get better at killing things.’

“So you’re saying you can’t stop your predatory nature?” Louis asks accusingly, standing from his chair and stalking towards the hybrid. “You don’t like that, do you?” He continues, stepping forward as Legoshi steps back, not letting him get too far away. “You can’t even hide it properly, you said yourself.”

Legoshi feels his foot hit the wall, and yet Louis still leans close, grabbing fistfuls of his collar and pushing him back. The smell of injured herbivore engulfs Legoshi’s senses, and his stomach begins to growl, much to his horror. ‘I can’t let go now, I just can’t,’ he thinks to himself.

“I hate carnivores like you the most,” Louis snarls. “The ones that pretend that they’re harmless when everyone knows it was one of you that devoured that alpaca right here on school grounds. Why don’t you ever use your strength? Even Bill shows it off when moving things, but I only ever see you scurrying around in the lighting gallery.”

‘My strength as a carnivore? ’ Legoshi tries to think of the times when it has actually been a benefit to him. As a kid, he was told to be especially careful when playing with herbivores because he could accidentally hurt them. Growing up, that meant avoiding hanging out with herbivores if he could help it, and especially not ever touching them. Now, the only good his carnivore strength has done for him is almost attack a student in the cafeteria, and attack and devour someone else. The dingo’s half-rotting skull from his nightmare rears its head in his mind.

“You don’t have to hold back, you know. Show me your fangs, Legoshi,” Louis orders.

“What?!” Legoshi splutters. “It’s illegal to bare your fangs to a herbivore–”

“Don’t label me as just a herbivore,” Louis half-shouts, interrupting Legoshi and causing him to clam up. “I’ve always hated your reserved personality,” the buck hisses, bringing one hand up and touching the side of Legoshi’s muzzle with his fingers. Pressing onwards in his brazen disrespect of Legoshi’s boundaries, Louis moves his fingers under the hybrid’s lips and up against his fangs. When Legoshi instinctively opens his mouth to move his sharp fangs away from Louis’ delicate skin, the buck pushes his whole hand into Legoshi’s mouth. “Stop trying to hide the fact that you’re a carnivore and do what you’re made for,” Louis snarls. “Bite me.”

Abject panic runs through Legoshi’s body and alarm bells sound in his head as his self-preservation battles with his instinct to bite through Louis’ hand and devour it whole. ‘What the fuck is happening!? Why are you doing this Louis?! ’ He screams in his head, body locking up in an effort to stop himself from attacking the herbivore right here and now. ‘His skin is so soft, just like Haru’s. Just like Tem’s. It would be so easy to bite down, just to taste his blood.’ Saliva floods Legoshi’s mouth as a spectre of the dingo’s blood plays itself over his tongue and throat. ‘NO, I can’t! I have to control myself,’ Legoshi gulps in a vain attempt to stop the drool from escaping his mouth.

“BITE ME LEGOSHI,” Louis shouts, shoving the hybrid in an effort to rile him up. “BITE ME, NOW.”

A heady feeling of anticipation runs out of Legoshi’s heart and through his veins, as if the blood that runs through Louis is calling to his own, begging him to unite the two in a sacred act of consumption. Legoshi eases the tension from his jaw, allowing the muscles to slowly close. The sharp tips of his huge mismatched fangs begin to press onto Louis’ flesh, indententing the flesh without yet popping through the skin. Suddenly, Legoshi sees Louis’ expression change from one of anger, to one of being completely out of his depth. It reminds Legoshi of Tem’s expression when he confronted him and Riz on the rooftop that first time; it’s a hard exterior over a ball of self-destruction and deep, in the bone sadness.

The thought of eating Tem causes such revulsion in Legoshi’s mind and body that he gags as if he’s going to throw up and slaps Louis’ hand away, now coated ina layer of thick drool and mucus. Turning to the side, Legoshi coughs several times and digs his claws hard into his palms to ground himself. This time, however, the talon-like ends of his claws slice straight through the scar tissue and pierce his flesh below, causing small amounts of blood to wick under his nails. The shock of pain gives something for Legoshi to focus on that doesn’t involve eating another living animal, and he gets a little bit of his breathing back under control. 

“I’m sorry,” he pants, hands on his knees and facing away from the star actor. “I have to be reserved. A carnivore’s strength is destructive, and it’s only ever been something that can hurt others in my life. People look at me being strong and see a threat, even other carnivores since I’m a large breed.” Legoshi straightens up and turns back to look at Louis, staring straight past the buck’s unbalanced expression and into his eyes. “You being strong inspires hope in others, not fear. That’s why all those people are coming to see the show, to see you being strong. You’re not stronger because you’re made to kill other people. You’re strong for the right reasons.”

Legoshi walks towards the door and opens it, stopping for a second before leaving the room. “I’m sorry for interrupting, I’ll come back another time to talk about the lighting,” he adds over his shoulder, and walks away, closing the door behind him. As Legoshi strides away from the office, he digs his claws deeper and deeper into his palms. He goes straight from the office and out of the club rooms towards the bathroom instead of back to Dom, stumbling into a large breed cubicle and leaning on the door with his shoulder. Bringing his slightly shaking hands up in front of his face, Legoshi pulls his fingers free, and he watches in dull fascination and little pools of blood well up in the puncture wounds. Each one is no larger than a prick made to test iron levels, but each one forms a few small droplets, turning his palms into tiny pools of blood.

Legoshi smells that sweet and sour scent once more, except this time it’s not in his head, and his stomach once again growls. ‘ It’s not hurting anyone, I suppose ,’ he thinks through the fog of hunger and self-loathing that’s beginning to set into him. He laps up the blood from his hands and almost lets out a sigh of relief as the blood wets his tongue, coating his throat in its saccharine goodness. The pain is still there, but it feels far away from this ecstasy, like the two could never exist together. 

Besides, even if it does hurt, he deserves it. 

After a few minutes, the burning desire for meat and pain in Legoshi’s body has subsided to a glowing ember. It’s not entirely extinguished, but banked in the mean time. He looks dully at his palms as the blood begins to coagulate and from clots in each of the cuts. ‘I guess it’s not the same if it’s from myself.’

“Legoshi? I know you’re in here, I could smell your blood on the way up.” The door to the bathroom has been pushed in, heralding the arrival of Riz and his worried voice. Legoshi can hear the brown bear locking the door behind him and walking quickly over to the cubicle that Legoshi is occupying. He opens the door without asking, easily pushing Legoshi’s unresistant shoulder out of the way. When he enters the stall, there is not much room left for both large breed carnivores. “What happened?” Riz asks worriedly as he pulls toilet paper from the dispenser and holds it hard on the wounds in Legoshi’s palms. “I asked Dom where you were but he said you went to see Louis.”

“I went to talk to him about lighting,” Legoshi mumbles. “He got really close to me, though, and he put his hand in my mouth to try get me to bite him.” Legoshi looks at Riz’s shocked expression and doesn’t speak for a second, instead choosing to look into his boyfriend’s eyes. “I almost did it,” he whispers. “I wanted to so badly, I could feel how soft his skin was on my teeth, but I didn’t.”

Riz gently pulls Legoshi into a hug, wrapping his comforting warmth around the hybrid and carving out a small piece of the world just for them. “I’m proud of you,” Riz says. “I’m angry at Louis, but I’m also proud of you.”

Legoshi stays in the hug for a long while, eventually unfolding his arms and returning it. “Your fur is so soft,” he adds, running one hand over the bear’s neck and ears.

“Thanks,” Riz says with an audible smile. “I’ve started using fur conditioner, never used to,” he adds.

“What changed?” Legoshi asks, still running his hands through the short fur.

“Well, I met you,” the bear admits with a chuckle. “I suddenly started caring about myself for some strange reason.”

Legoshi tightens his hug on Riz’s body and smiles. “I’m glad,” he murmurs.

“Why don’t we get out of here?” Riz suggests. “We can go hang out in my dorm room if you’d rather not go back to yours.”

“Is that okay? There’s still a bunch of things that need to be done before the performance tomorrow.” Legoshi feels torn between his obligation to the Drama club and a deep need to be anywhere other than an accident-prone building full of herbivores and carnivores alike.

“I’m done on my sound checks. I’ll just say you’re feeling sick.”

“Okay.”

The two break their embrace and wander back down the stairs to see Dom pacing worriedly outside the club entrance. The peafowl looks worriedly at Legoshi’s tissue-covered hands, but gives his best attempt at a gentle smile under the circumstances.

“Hey there! Are you alright, Legoshi? Aoba’s been asking after you,” Dom says, clearly holding himself back from patting the hybrid on his shoulder.

Legoshi looks at Dom with a confused expression. “Does Aoba need to talk about lighting?” He asks. “I thought I already went through his cues with him.”

“No, silly! He’s worried about you!” Dom says with a glance towards Riz. “People care about you in the Drama club, you know, not just me and Riz.”

A strange feeling of warmth bubbles up in Legoshi’s chest, and a rhythmic movement starts up behind him. Looking back over his shoulder, he sees that his tail is wagging. ‘Oh, that’s happiness,’ he thinks to himself. Looking back at Dom, he gives a smile that he knows doesn’t look reassuring, but he tries anyway. “I’m just feeling sick, but all of my final notes are in the gallery if anyone needs to read them.”

“Alright, I’ll tell people that, you go rest. I hope you feel better soon.” Dom walks hesitantly back to the door and opens it, giving a last look to the hybrid before walking through.

“Hey Riz?” Legoshi asks, looking at the closing door and listening to the sound of the chaos of other club members making final preparations and rehearsals. “Do you make any music?”

“What? Uh, yeah, a little bit,” Riz replies, a tinge of embarrassment in his voice. “Why are you asking now?”

“I’ve talked to you about bugs, I want to know more about what you like,” Legoshi says, looking up at his boyfriend’s curious expression. “I think I’m realising that love can be shown in lots of ways, and I want to do that for you. Can we listen to it when we get back to your room?”

Riz looks like he’s about to say no, but he hesitates. Instead, his embarrassment is replaced with the unmistakable glint of excitement in his eyes. “Sounds good.”

Chapter Text

~~ Tem ~~

‘Oh, the second night is always more interesting, you know that! Things go wrong on the second night because we’re all tired, it’ll be funny to be on the audience’s end for once!’ Tem cringes as the memory of his confident lie replays itself in his head. He walks into the theatre with Haru, looking around for the other animal they are going to meet. ‘Rex, I’m such a coward. Why couldn’t I just say I didn’t want to see Louis.'

“The roses the Drama club went with in the end look much better!” Haru says, ignoring the looks of distrust they are getting from many other animals.

“Hm? Oh yeah,” Tem replies distractedly. Scanning the seats, his yes fall on a familiar golden-furred canine waving at him. “There he is! Come on Haru!”

“Hey! Tem!” Haru protests, but Tem is already striding up the steps and along the seats towards the labrador.

“Jack!” Tem says happily.

“Hi Tem!” Jack’s tail wags slightly as the alpaca nears. He gestures to a spotted hyena sitting beside him. “You’ve met before! This is Miguno,” he introduces.

“Yeah, I remember! Nice to see you again!” Tem says as Haru catches up with a frustrated huff.

“You left me!” She complains hotly. “I’m a small herbivore, you know! I don’t have long legs like you!”

“Sorry, I guess I got caught up in, well,” Tem says awkwardly.

“You have a thing for canines, I understand,” Haru grumbles, rolling her eyes as she sits down.

“Sorry, what did you say?” Jack asks, a genuine look of curiosity on his face.

“Nothing!” Tem says quickly and sits down in his seat. “I was surprised when you messaged me about coming to the second night,” he says to Jack in order to move the topic of conversation away from Haru’s treachery. “Why wouldn’t you go to the first night instead?”

Both Jack and Miguno exchange confused looks before turning back to Tem.

“Don’t you know?” The hyena asks. “Legoshi is going to be performing tonight. Something about one of the other actors getting injured or something.”

~~ Legoshi ~~

“Don’t look like that! We spent all last night and this morning sewing you this costume!” Dom says to Legoshi as the hybrid views the collection of rags that are supposed to cover his body.

‘It looks scary, definitely, but…’ Legoshi thinks as he takes the ‘costume’ in his hands. “Dom, isn’t this a little…revealing?” He asks.

“Well, yeah! This is your debut performance, you need to show off how good you look on stage!” Dom grins enthusiastically.

‘At least the cloak covers the scales on my shoulder, and the bandages kind of cover them if I lose the cloak.’ Legoshi’s thoughts go to the possible reactions if he shows up on stage with scales shining bright in the pattern of bite and claw-marks.

“Ooooh yeah, I see it!” Kibi says, distracting Legoshi.

“What? Are you gay too?” He asks, not sure what the anteater is getting at.

“Ey?! No,” Kibi replies, elbowing Dom viciously who is suppressing laughter. “I meant I can see that you’re having second thoughts! Your nose kinda twitches to the right when you don’t like something, and you click your teeth together. I didn’t really know what Dom was talking about since I can’t hear it, but I can see your mouth moving a little.”

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t realise, sorry,” Legoshi mumbles. “I guess I’m not very good at showing my emotions like other animals.”

“It’s not bad, it’s just how you show them!” Dom says.

Before Legoshi can reply, however, a familiar scent makes its way to his nose from the other side of the backstage room. Alarm bells go off in his mind, and his nose leads his head around on a swivel in the direction of the smell. His eyes land on Bill, and he fights the urge to flick his tongue out in the tiger’s direction. ‘ That smell, surely not, not here. ’

Legoshi hands the costume back to Dom wordlessly and strides towards Bill, all notion of personal boundaries tossed aside as he sniffs at the tiger’s shirt. “Bill,” he says in a low voice. “What do you have—“

“Whoa! I really need to use the bathroom!” Bill announces, interrupting Legoshi. “Be right back!” He adds as he rushes out of the door.

“I’ll be right back too,” Legoshi says before following the rapidly disappearing orange tail.

When he reaches the bathroom, Legoshi shoves the door open so hard he can hear the wood crack as it hits the doorstop. Hot rage billows through his body, and he can feel its acrid taste making its way through his skin to puff out his fur. It pours into his mouth and mixes with his saliva, forming the bitter venom that has become his bane in recent weeks. As Legoshi steps into the bathroom, Bill whips around with a look of false bravado plastered over his face. To the tiger’s credit, he only falters slightly when he sees the state that Legoshi is in.

“Following me into the bathroom? You need to take it more slowly if you’re trying to come onto me, you know,” Bill teases. “You should start with a love letter like Tem, although I’ve heard that he’s been hanging out with a particular rabbit, so maybe he’s given up on Els.”

Normally the comments would make Legoshi slink back, terrified that someone as popular and loud-mouthed as Bill would casually spill his secret. However, the scent emanating from Bill’s pocket stops him from backing down. It keeps his hackles up, his venom flowing, and his anger from going out. “What do you have, Bill?” Legoshi growls, trying to stop the bitter drool from escaping his lips. He can feel the chemical sizzle of his tablet fighting against the sudden tide of venom, and it won’t be long before he needs to spit it out or sink his teeth into someone.

“Haha, guess I can’t fool that nose of yours! You want some?” Bill rummages in a pocket and pulls out a small glass vial with a stopper in the top, presenting it to the hybrid. Red liquid swirls inside it, making Legoshi’s mouth water. “It’s rabbit blood,” Bill adds. “It’s not from a student! One of the older tigers gave it to me in case I needed it.”

Legoshi’s stomach flips, and he once again goes through the internal cycle of hunger and self-disgust before finally sublimating into anger. He lunges forward and tries grab the vial, but Bill pulls it back and barely blocks Legoshi’s swipe. The force behind the hybrid’s arm makes Bill stumble back and look at Legoshi in surprise.

“Where was that strength when we were rehearsing?” Bill asks, his grin contorted by a sudden flash of anger. “You have it easy living life in the wings, Legoshi, but you don’t get what it’s like for me, or every other carnivore that doesn’t want to live under a herbivore’s boot! You’re clearly strong, but you just use it to raise up herbivores on a pedestal!” He almost shouts, making Legoshi stop advancing. “This is justified to give me a little confidence! I’m going to go out there and show everyone that a carnivore can be in the spotlight just as well as Louis can!”

Legoshi is about to lunge again, maybe even attack Bill right here and now to relieve the aching pressure in his muscles, but something about the tiger’s words get through to him. ‘He’s right, in some ways at least,’ Legoshi thinks to himself bitterly. ‘He’s trying to make things better for carnivores in his own way. But is the answer really to drink herbivore blood? To treat them like Bill does? ’

Legoshi meets Bill’s gaze and glares, causing the other carnivore to stiffen slightly as if expecting another attack. “You’ve just made me realise something, Bill. I’m actually grateful,” Legoshi growls out of the corner of his mouth. 

“What?” The tiger replies with a look of confusion.

“I’m not going to run away anymore, but I’m not going to fight you in the bathroom where no one can see us.” Legoshi cracks his knuckles and swallows the mouthful of venom and rage down into his stomach where it bubbles. “I’ll join you in the spotlight, and we can sort this out on stage.” He turns to leave, but looks over his shoulder one more time, baring his mismatched fangs at Bill as he does. “I’ll make you pay.”

~~ Tem ~~

‘Rex, Bill is really flunking this,’ Tem thinks to himself, making sure to keep his cringing only on the inside out of an actor’s courtesy. Everyone in the audience was surprised when a bulky tiger came onto stage as Adler, rather than a lithe deer, and it’s clear that the confusion coming from the seats is making Bill nervous. Ordinarily, Tem might have relished the chance to see the boisterous carnivore taken down a notch or two, but not like this in a starring role. ‘He might be an asshole sometimes, but he doesn’t deserve to be humiliated like this.’

Bill stumbles over another line, and Tem sees him glance at the audience nervously. Whispers go through the seated animals even as the carnivore tries to rally, and it’s clear that they’re all disappointed. 

“Hey, I think Legoshi’s coming on stage soon!” Jack whispers beside him holding a battered copy of the script that the wolf must have given him. The labrador’s tail wags in the space cut into the backrest of the chair cut for that purpose, and Tem smiles at his enthusiasm. “Yeah, here he comes! Oh. Oh no…”

Tem looks back at the stage, confused at the worried tone that strangles Jack’s bubbliness, and his blood runs cold as he sees the figure stepping slowly on stage. It must be Legoshi; it’s shaped like him even despite the costume that makes him look like an avenging spirit of the grave. It has the same tall frame with those muscles that look well developed, if not in the same body-builder way that Bill has. It doesn’t move like Legoshi, though. Where the wolf picks his steps carefully and tries not to take up space, this animal stands up straight and treads with the deliberation of someone sharpening an axe. The creature’s naked hostility is palpable, and Tem can feel some deep part of his own brain telling him to get out of there as quickly as possible. When he looks around at the other audience members, he can see that many other herbivores are looking similarly uncomfortable, whereas most of the carnivores are leaning forward in their seats in anticipation.

“Is that really Legoshi?” Miguno murmurs in a worried tone.

“Yeah. Rex, something must have happened, I’ve never seen him like this before,” Jack replies, licking his nose nervously.

Tem feels a small hand to his left grab his arm, and he looks down to see Haru clutching him with her eyes glued to the stage, ears down and feet shifting in fear. “I’ve seen him like that before,” she whispers without looking around.

Something about the energy in the room has put the audience into a hush, and yet nobody seems to be able to drag their gazes away from the stage, Tem included. He can feel the tension building in the room like some huge rubber band slowly being stretched taught, waiting until the person at the other end lets go. No one knows what will happen when that pent up energy is released, but it seems like everyone is sticking around to see.

“There you are, foul spirit!” Bill announces, brandishing his sword as the Legoshi-shaped thing takes another step. “Face me, and I will show you the way back to the underworld from where you came!”

‘Did they give him prosthetic claws? ’ Tem thinks as his eyes run over the long talon-like protrusions that extend from Legoshi’s fingers and toes. Each one audibly clicks against the stage as the wolf takes each step. Tem feels Haru’s fingers grip him tighter as Legoshi hunches slightly and takes a leaping stride, sailing through the air on a path to land just in front of Bill. It feels like time slows as Tem watches his friend makes such an obviously predatory display, and all other sounds dull in his ears until he can only focus on what is happening in front of him. Legoshi drops the prop knife as he leaps and pulls one hand back behind him, cloak billowing off his shoulders. The knife hits the ground with a small thud, and Legoshi’s hand returns on its pathway, open-palmed as he lands too close for Bill to block. With the flexing of muscles that Tem hasn’t seen on Legoshi before, the wolf’s hand collides with the side of Bill’s face in a powerful blow that sends the tiger flying backwards through the air.

The heavy thud of Bill falling onto the stage, and the ‘oof’ of air being pushed out of him with the force of the blow, brings the situation crashing back into Tem, and several other audience members begin to whisper frantically. Many of them ask if this is part of the show, but Tem and those sitting beside him already know that it isn’t. This is a real fight between two carnivores, and no one knows what to do.

~~ Legoshi ~~

Ever since swallowing his venom, it feels like a pit has opened in the bottom of Legoshi’s stomach, and he finds that more parts of him have disappeared into it every time he checks. First went the last goodwill he has for Bill, followed closely by his usual inhibition around getting into fights. The words of his mother telling him to fit in with others swirl in his mind briefly before being swallowed down into the pit. Legoshi’s grandfather’s teachings of pacifism and stern words about not being rough with others dissolve into the acerbic cauldron of his stomach. Soon, all that’s left is a deep need to prove Bill wrong.

Now, as the other carnivore hits the ground from the ringing slap, Legoshi feels the sweet pleasure of vindication flowing through him. Whispers reach him from the audience, but Legoshi ignores them, stalking forward to the prone figure a few metres away from him.

‘Who is that wolf?’
‘Is this part of the play? It didn’t happen last year.
‘It has to be, they wouldn’t just have a real fight on stage would they?’
‘Definitely… it’s still kind of scary though.’
‘But exciting too, right? They look cool as fuck!’

Legoshi’s ear flicks towards the source of the last few whispers, and his lips pull back in a scowl. “What would you know of love, Reaper?” Legoshi growls, loud enough that the audience can hear and playing on the illusion that they’re still performing. “You say you love this lost soul, but you have fought against and hurt those who used to see you as a friend!” He pulls the still-dazed Bill up by the collar of his costume and throws him bodily across the stage in the direction Legoshi came from. “You use your strength only to hurt and stand on a pedestal of bones,” he says with an icy voice. Walking back over, Legoshi straddles Bill’s stomach and pulls back a fist. "I said I’d make you pay,” he says quietly, and punches the tiger square in the jaw of his mask. 

The audience collectively leans forward in their seats as the false skull clatters in the wings after the punch breaks the straps holding it in place. Legoshi keeps punching, the sour smell of Bill’s blood staining the air from what looks like a broken nose, incensing further violence from the hybrid. He doesn’t even know why he’s punching at this point, he’s proven his point, but Rex does it feel good. 

“Legoshi! What are you doing?! ” Aoba’s harsh and desperate whisper comes from the nearby wings, and Legoshi looks up with one fist raised to see the eagle’s face full of alarm and worry.

‘He kind of looks like he did what night I lost my first few teeth,’ Legoshi thinks, outburst momentarily distracted. 

Taking the opportunity, Bill grabs Legoshi’s fist and shoves him back, using the momentum to force the hybrid back as he stands. “That’s enough, Legoshi,” Bill growls. “What are you trying to do? Be a hero? Prove you’re the perfect carnivore in front of everyone? That can’t be true, you’re enjoying hitting me too much.”

As Bill speaks, the conviction that propels Legoshi begins to drain away, and for the first time since getting on stage, he notices the looks of fear, excitement, and horror on the faces of the audience members at the scene unfolding on stage. Bill quickly wraps his arms around Legoshi, pinning the hybrid in place and forcing him to look at the audience over the tiger’s shoulders. Legoshi locks eyes with the last two people who he expected, or wanted, to see him like this tonight.

“You’ve smelled rabbit blood before, haven’t you? ” Bill asks, and Legoshi freezes, staring at Haru’s frightened expression. “You wouldn’t react this way if you hadn’t. Did you hurt one, Legoshi? Did you eat a rabbit, maybe? Maybe you really were the one who ate that alpaca, too.”

“Calm down, my brother spirit!” Bill says loud enough so the audience can hear. “We will surely understand one another, and I will calm your rage!”

Legoshi lets out a gasp as he feels Bill’s claws dig into his back and drag through his flesh, his fur beginning to feel warm as his blood leaks from the wounds. The loops attaching Legoshi’s costume over his shoulder tear as easily as his skin, and his scales begin to catch the spotlight. ‘I can’t push him away now, otherwise everyone will see,’ Legoshi thinks, forcing himself not to bite down onto Bill’s shoulder like his instincts are screaming at him to do.

“This is a gift,” Bill continues in his low voice. “Now we match, see? Stripes from one predator to another.”

The other carnivore releases Legoshi, and he falls to the ground, landing heavily in an effort to hide his scales from the world. Almost as soon as he does, he feels the weight of a boot press onto his chest and looks up at the leering figure of Bill.

‘Oh, I see,’ Legoshi thinks dully as blood drips from Bill’s nose and slashed cheek onto him. ‘Our blood is the same, no matter what we do. It’s still the same blood that’s hurt me so much, that I’ve struggled with my whole life. It’s just the blood of a carnivore. Bill’s blood even smells similar to mine.’

“I’m still the lead actor, so this is when I defeat you, and the show can go on,” Bill sneers quietly. “Just make sure to make me look good when I finish you off.”

Legoshi lays still on the ground and doesn’t fight it as Bill picks his sword off the ground from nearby, still with his boot on the hybrid’s chest. ‘It doesn’t feel like there’s any point anymore,’ Legoshi thinks, turning his head to look back at Tem. ‘I tried to prove that Bill is wrong the way he’d understand, but all that’s done is make me look even more of a monster. Haru is probably going to tell Tem what happened that night, and he’ll never want to be around me anymore. Riz won’t feel safe around me with how I snapped at Bill. I’ve just fucked everything up.’

“You look like you’re having far too much fun with this, a real reaper doesn’t play with his defeated enemies.”

Legoshi whips his head around in surprise to see Louis standing at Bill’s side. He isn’t wearing any costume apart from the the discarded Adler mask, but he still announces to the audience as if this is all part of the script. He is wielding an identical prop sword to Bill, and he expertly uses it to deflect the tiger’s blow and disarm him, sending his sword careening away. Louis wheels around and points his sword threateningly at Bill, striking an imposing figure as only a star actor knows how.

‘Louis? How are you even standing up right now?! You were in the infirmary with a broken ankle just last night!’ Legoshi thinks, looking up in awe at the herbivore.

“Legoshi, stay on the ground and don’t let the audience see your back. Leave everything to me,” Louis says quietly. “Know this, stray cat, Adler knows all of your evil deeds!” Louis shouts louder, and Bill’s face goes pale in fear. “I’d dare you to try and drink my blood, but you know nothing of death! You will never understand what it is to be the true Reaper. There is no need for a fake!”

The audience begins to whisper again, although this time it’s with enthusiasm and more than a bit of cheering. In the face of the changing attitude of the crowd and the accusations laden in Louis’ speech, Bill turns and runs off stage. As the audience cheers, Louis turns to Legoshi and leans down with one hand out towards him. “Can you stand, young spirit?” He asks. “You were in the right in attempting to vanquish that imposter, it was clear he knew nothing of love, and only knowing that can a Reaper carry out his duty properly.”

Legoshi takes the proffered hand, mesmerised by the deer silhouetted in a halo of stage light, and stands up, although he keeps one hand over his shoulder to hide the scales there.

~~ Riz ~~

When the curtains lower and the last sound cue passes by, Riz practically smashes the door to the sound box open as he opens it. He rushes past Mokichi, the other sound technician, saying his apologies over his shoulder to the badger. The off-script fight was clearly real to anyone who knows Legoshi, but Riz can’t figure out what could have caused his boyfriend to flip out like that, and on stage no less. Only something going incredibly wrong would break down Legoshi’s self-control and fear of other people seeing him. Riz’s heavy footfalls echo down the hallway and stairs, and he has to stop himself from ripping the door to backstage off of it’s hinges.

Quickly after he opens it, Riz has to flatten himself against the wall as a furious-looking Louis comes through without looking at him and storms away. The scent of blood immediately hits Riz’s sensitive nose, and Legoshi has gotten hurt enough times recently that he can recognise that it’s the wolf’s blood he’s smelling. Following his nose through to the backstage area, Riz finds the majority of the Drama club still in chaos, with half of the club berating both Legoshi and Bill, most of the rest staring at the two bloodied carnivores in horror, and one or two looking genuinely concerned. Legoshi has backed himself up against the wall, and Riz can see blood trickling down the wall in small rivulets behind him. Almost all of the club herbivores are keeping at least two metres away from Bill and Legoshi, the only exception being Dom, who is holding a roll of bandages and wound pads in his hand. 

“Legoshi, let me bandage you up! You’re losing a lot of blood! Please!” The peafowl begs, panic and desperation present in his tone.

The wolf shakes his head and says nothing, prompting Riz to stride over faster, pushing past other animals without caring about what their reactions will be. The sudden presence of a brown bear firmly moving people aside right after the scene of such violence causes several of the herbivores to jump and take a few steps back from him. The noise causes Dom to look back, and a look of intense relief passes over him.

“Thank Rex, maybe he’ll let you do it,” Dom says, pressing the medical supplies into his hands. “He’s not letting anyone touch his back.”

Riz nods and approaches Legoshi firmly, easily stepping over the invisible line drawn by the crowd of people and their retisense to cross it. It looks for a moment like Legoshi is going to turn away from even Riz, and he stands up straight. A rumble builds in Riz’s chest and comes out as a snarl that causes even Bill to inch away involuntarily. As the club freezes in horror, doubtless expecting another carnivore brawling match, Riz steps closer to Legoshi. “Don’t you fucking dare stop me from bandaging you up, Legoshi,” Riz growls low and menacing.

It’s clear that the adrenaline is still coursing through both of their systems, as Legoshi’s own hackles raise at the sound, before he gets a hold of himself and settles for a stoic posture, rather than an outright hostile one. “You don’t have to feel obligated to help me. I got myself into this situation, I can clean it up,” Legoshi says in a low voice that sends indignant fury through Riz’s body.

“Obligated? OBLIGATED?! ” He roars in a voice so loud he’s sure that people who are still exiting the the theatre might be able to hear. “You think I feel obligated to help you? I want to help you, and I won’t have any of your fucking depression stop me.” The words come out as both an offer of love, and a threat, and Riz has to stop himself from crushing the box of wound dressings in his hands to a pulp in anger. 

Despite the tone that has made all other carnivores in the Drama club wilt in fear and various displays of submission, Legoshi still manages to stay standing, although Riz can see him begin to wobble on his feet. The wolf turns his face away as his last petty act of resistance.

“You’re gonna be like that are you? Are you ever going to get it through your head that I’m not lying when I say I care about you?!” Riz’s voice gets more aggressively worried with each passing second that the blood adds to the small pool forming at Legoshi’s feet. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” he adds, stepping forward to do the only thing he can think of to snap his boyfriend out of his self-loathing. Putting the medical supplies in just one of his large hands, Riz takes a final step forward and uses his free hand to grab the scruff of Legoshi’s neck, wrenching the wolf towards him and mashing their faces together in one of the most aggressive yet genuine kisses in the history of teenage angst.

The rest of the club gasps as Riz presses his lips to Legoshi’s with a force that’s almost painful, and the bear can feel the wolf’s fangs catch on his tongue, piercing it slightly and letting blood flow from his mouth into Legoshi’s. He doesn’t care, and even uses it as a dirty tactic to get Legoshi to fully take on the meaning behind Riz’s actions, pushing his bleeding tongue further past the other carnivore’s teeth. As the blood suffuses onto Legoshi’s tongue, Riz feels him involuntarily chase the flavour, and his body presses against Riz’s in an effort to taste a little more. A small moan escapes Legoshi’s lips as his bare chest brushes against Riz’s shirt, and Riz pulls back slightly before they can get too carried away. Despite this, a small string of blood-tinged saliva hangs between their mouths before quickly breaking.

“I love you, Legoshi!” Riz says, tears now falling from his eyes. “Don’t push me away on this! I don’t care if you got into a fight, just let me help you in this one way!”

Legoshi looks deep into Riz’s eyes, and finally nods, peeling his back from the wall with an audibly sticky noise as the drying blood is separated from his fur. Riz steps smartly behind him and grabs a nearby waterbottle off of a piece of set before using it to rinse the claw-marks that run over his boyfriend’s back. Part of him wants to haul off and hit Bill even harder than Legoshi has for causing these injuries, but Riz stifles that impulse by focusing on applying wound pads and rolls of bandage.

“Uh. What the fuck just happened?” Bill asks, still standing a few metres away. He turns to the other club members, who are all watching open-mouthed. “Did that just happen?” He asks again, desperate to get some confirmation that this is all real.

“Yeah, it did, got a problem with that?” Dom replies, rallying magnificently and turning on Bill with crossed arms.

“What? No! I don’t care if dudes are into dudes, or chicks are into chicks! Or whatever else!” Bill answers quickly. “I’m just mad that he punched me in the fucking face!” He adds. 

“Good!” Dom turns back to Legoshi, although the peafowl’s expression doesn’t soften. “And you! Just because your boyfriend is patching you up, doesn’t mean you get away with not taking responsibility! What the hell were you thinking, starting a fight on stage?!”

Riz smiles at the way the Legoshi squirms under the herbivore’s attention. ‘No wriggling your way out of this one, pup,’ he thinks to himself, wrapping another loop of bandage tightly around his boyfriend’s abdomen. 

“I can’t say,” Legoshi mumbles. When Dom lets out an indignant scoff, he looks up and glances at Bill. “I really can’t say,” he repeats firmly. “But Bill knows what it’s about, and we’ll talk to Louis about it.”

“Well, you better get going right now,” Sanu says, piping up from the group of club members standing nearby. “Louis said he wanted to talk to you both at the back of the theatre building immediately. He looked furious!”

“What, now?” Bill asks, the hint of a complaint in his tone.

“Yes, now,” Legoshi says with an air of finality that isn’t quite a threat, but a promise that their fight could start up again right now if needed.

“Alright! Rex, you don’t have to threaten me!” Bill protests, putting his hands up in surrender and walking in the direction of the door that Louis left through. After a few steps, he stops and waits expectantly.

Riz secures the third roll of bandage and nods, making sure to have covered up Legoshi’s shoulder scales even though there aren’t any wounds there. Before his boyfriend can wander off though, Riz quickly pulls off the black shirt he is wearing and forces the warm fabric over Legoshi’s head and arms, leaving Riz in just a singlet. “You need to stay warm when you’re injured,” he says with the same definitely-not-a-threat tone that Legoshi employed just before on Bill. 

Legoshi nods gratefully and turns around to kiss Riz again, albeit slightly more chaste this time. Before Bill can comment, they break the kiss and Legoshi begins walking away beside the tiger. When they leave through the door, the rest of the club turns its gaze on Riz.

“What?” He asks, ignoring the obvious and trying not to shiver.

“That was one passionate kiss,” Dom says with a grin, voicing the collective thought. “I guess you’re out now?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Kai cuts in, having gotten down from the lighting gallery almost as quickly as Riz did. “You’re the bear that Legoshi’s been stinking of for the past month?”

Riz tries not to blush with embarrassment, but he can see laughs begin to form on the lips of a few of the other club members. “Yeah, I am,” he says, folding his arms.

Kai’s nose wrinkles in disgust. “Eeeeeew,” he says.

“Kai! ” Dom gasps in surprise.

“Not ew because it’s gay!” Kai clarifies quickly before the peafowl’s wrath can be released. “It’s just that they’ve basically been advertising to the whole school when they’ve been fucking!” The mongoose complains, and his words make the entire room go silent in horrified contemplation.

“But that’s so often…” Els says in confusion.

Riz feels the collective stares of the club bore into his skull and out the back, through the wall and into the distance. ‘Maybe that wasn’t such a great idea,’ he thinks to himself as he dies a little with each new expression that the various club members settle on. ‘Yeah, definitely going to have to reconsider that one.’

Chapter Text

~~ Tem ~~

‘Fucking HELL she’s fast! She’s so small, but she slips through the crowd so much easier!’ Tem thinks desperately as he pushes between various students to catch up to Haru. Ever since the very obviously bloody fight on stage, the rabbit has been tense with building emotions, and now that the doors have opened, they’re all coming out at the same time. It takes a lot of effort to keep track of Haru, but Tem’s long neck for once gives him an advantage looking over some people’s heads. The alpaca frowns as he sees a pair of long white ears dart away from the main crowd. ‘Where are you going Haru? It’s almost sunset! It’s dangerous out here! ’

Just as Tem is about to lose his breath and keel over, he turns a corner to see that they’ve made a loop around the auditorium to the back door where it adjoins a courtyard, a large fountain in the middle. No one else is around, as all other students are going back to their dorms or to get dinner. Tem pants slightly before composing himself and walking over to Haru. She stands stock still at the edge of the fountain, staring down into the water with her back to Tem, and he makes sure to not walk too loudly so as to not spook her any more.

“This is where it happened, Tem.” Haru’s voice is low and even, and Tem tenses as he gets closer, hesitating before taking the final step to be beside the rabbit. Haru looks up at him with a grim expression. “Where Legoshi attacked me,” she adds.

“Oh,” Tem says, thoughts racing with how someone even begins to reply to that information. “What happened afterwards?” he asks lamely. “You’ve never really told me everything that happened.”

“I had been soaked in water by Mizuchi because her boyfriend cheated on her with me, which I didn’t know at the time by the way.” Haru glares briefly at Tem, daring him to comment before continuing. “And after I dried off, it was night time. When I walked across this courtyard, I heard a carnivore growling behind me, and I stopped walking, right here where he are now,” Haru says, turning to look back along the path of her escape. “I was thinking about how worthless I felt as a person and how people treat me like trash, and then this carnivore was there, ready to end it. It felt like it was how it was meant to be, but I wanted to let that carnivore know that even a herbivore as worthless as me still had something worth running away from him for.”

Tem goes to touch Haru’s shoulder, but stops himself before he does. ‘How do I even comfort you? ’ He thinks, the somber face of his former roommate the night he went out and got devoured on purpose. “You’re not worthless,” Tem says weakly. “People at this school suck so bad, but you’re not worthless. You’re stronger than any herbivore that I know, stronger than me.”

“Stronger than you?” Haru asks, turning back to look at him in a confused manner.

Tem shrugs. “I’m too much of a coward to decide on what I want,” he says. “You always know what you want and how to get it. I admire that.”

“You certainly didn’t admire it when I came onto you the second time you came over the Gardening club,” Haru says with a sigh.

“I turned you down for other reasons,” Tem replies. “I think I was mostly surprised,” he adds with an embarrassed chuckle. His expression turns somber once again after the moment of respite passes. “Did the fight on stage remind you of that night?” He asks.

“Honestly, it reminds me of running away from Legoshi when he was fighting that other carnivore,” Haru admits. “They sounded like they were killing each other, and all I could think about was how I needed to be somewhere far away when they finished fighting with each other.

Tem thinks back to that first lunch he had with Legoshi and assorted carnivores after the Devouring. The wolf hadn’t felt like eating anything until it was doused with something that apparently is disgusting to most canines and carnivores in general. “It was almost like he lost his sense of taste,” Tem murmurs.

“He tried not to eat me,” Haru says. “I could tell. It was almost like he was talking to himself with how much he kept hesitating and pull back.”

“That’s, good?” Tem says, a question in his tone.

“Well yeah.” Haru shrugs. “It shows that he was acting on instinct, instead of planning to do that. If he had planned to eat someone, then he wouldn’t have held back, and he would be one messed up guy to have on campus. I don’t blame him for having instincts, just like I don’t blame myself for running out here. Every time I see him open his mouth even to talk, my legs move on their own and try to get me out of there. At least he tried to apologise with how he helped with the gardening club things, which is more than most people who hurt or scare me.”

“Tem! Are you there?” Riz’s voice filters into the courtyard seconds before the brown bear rounds the corner. Tem turns to see him standing in the middle of the path, looking at  both herbivores in shock. Tem looks at Riz’s face, the way that he keeps glancing between Haru, the fountain, and the back of the auditorium, and a feeling of cold certainty steal over his body. It’s like cool water is being trickled under his wool and directly onto his skin.

“You know, don’t you?” Tem asks, and he watches dully as Riz stiffens. “What happened here, I mean, with Legoshi and Haru,” he continues, and Haru turns her hard expression on the bear. “You’ve always known.”

Riz looks between the two herbivores, and Tem almost expects him to lie. The large carnivore towers over them even though he’s still a few metres away, casting a shadow that envelopes both herbivores and silhouettes him in the pre-sunset light. ‘He could kill us,’ Tem thinks to himself. ‘He’s always been so strong, but I think I’m only just realising how dangerous he could be. Why didn’t I see it before? ’

“I have,” Riz says, shoulders staying tense.

“Tell me, Riz,” Haru says. “Have you eaten meat before?”

Tem’s breath catches in his chest, and his hands clench into fists. The trickle on his skin freezes to ice, so cold and paralysing that he can’t even shiver. His heartbeat pounds in his ears, and he thinks back to the night that Duncan died, and how he almost went out to see Riz that night as well. The last night before the body was discovered and everything went to shit. Tem forces himself to look into Riz’s eyes as the question hangs heavily in the air. As the bear opens his mouth slightly to answer, the light glints off of his sharp teeth.

“Yes,” he says.

In the silence that comes afterwards, an early cherry blossom floats through the air and lands in the fountain, floating on the water that reflects its sweet pink hue.

~~ Legoshi ~~

“You totally broke my nose, dude,” Bill complains as he walks with Legoshi down the hallway on their way to see Louis. “And my eye’s all bruised up. How am I gonna pick up girls looking like this?”

“And I’m not going to able to wear my braces until my back heals,” Legoshi counters. Every time he takes a step, he can feel the lattice of bandages moving slightly on his back. “How do you think I’m going to feel walking around with my pants falling down constantly?”

“Just use a belt, bro!” Bill says, but quickly falls silent again. When Legoshi looks at him, he doesn’t meet the hybrid’s gaze. They slow to a stop, and Bill continues looking away. “Why didn’t you tell them about the rabbit blood?” He asks, finally raising his eyes to Legoshi’s. “You could have told them all and gotten me kicked out of club. I know I’ve been a bit of a dick to you sometimes, so you could have gotten me out of your fur.”

Legoshi looks hard at Bill, trying to reach for that righteous anger from before, and finds he can’t. The yawning pit that consumed his reason has long been closed, and he can’t use it as an excuse anymore. “I would be a hypocrite,” Legoshi sighs.

Bill’s eyes widen for a moment, and Legoshi can tell he has to stop himself from blurting out the first thing that pops up in his head. “So, you really have eaten meat then?” Bill asks carefully.

‘No going back now,’ Legoshi thinks. “Yeah. I have. I don’t want to talk about it, and it was not a good experience. It’s pretty fitting that you gave me these stripes.”

Bill closes his eyes and breathes in deeply before speaking again. “I have to ask you, and please don’t lose your shit when I do, but did you actually eat that alpaca?”

“No,” Legoshi says flatly, eyes narrowing further. 

“Okay, next question,” Bill continues, nodding. “You’ve got scales. Are you a hybrid?”

Legoshi rolls his eyes. “No, I’ve got a skin disease,” he says sarcastically. “What do you think?”

“Hey man, I’m trying to be respectful!” Bill protests hotly. “So is that why you’re way more of a loner than other canines?”

Legoshi shrugs. “I guess. Everyone expects me to be one way, but when I’m not like that, everyone thinks I’m a creep.”

Bill falls silent once again, and they both stand there awkwardly for a long few seconds.

“That sounds really tough,” the tiger eventually says. “I’m sorry for being an asshole about it.”

“Thanks,” Legoshi says, quite shocked at the earnest way that Bill speaks.

“I’m still not happy about you breaking my fucking nose, but I’ll be more chill in the future,” Bill clarifies. “You really punched me like you wanted to prove that you were right, you know, I could tell,” he adds. “But why are you so uptight about the blood thing if you’ve eaten meat before? You’re the one who devoured someone, a vial of blood is small fry in comparison.”

“I said that I didn’t devour that alpaca!” Legoshi growls, fur bristling again.

“Whoa! I didn’t say you did!” Bill backtracks, holding his hands up at shoulder-height in surrender. “But come on, it’s pretty obvious from the way you said it.”

“How are you so okay with that?” Legoshi asks, giving up all pretense of innocence.

“We’re carnivores,” Bill says simply with a shrug. “If we don’t eat meat, we lose control and take it. Didn’t your parents ever give you the talk?”

Legoshi shakes his head. ‘Mom was too busy hiding, and I haven’t talked to grandpa since the funeral,’ he thinks. “I don’t like how you treat it like just a thing, like an object,” he mutters. “That blood came from a person, even if they were already dead.”

“If you want to get weird about it every time you eat, be my guest, but I’m okay with the separation of a price tag,” Bill says dismissively. “Now come on, our glorious star actor is waiting for our stupid carnivore asses.”

~~ Riz ~~

Another cherry blossom floats down into the courtyard, followed by a brief flurry of petals as a gust blows through, each flower falling like a pink snowflake. Riz looks at them descend through the air, taking any excuse not to look at the faces of the two herbivores in front of him.

“Holy Rex,” Tem says in a strange voice, and starts walking to the edge of the courtyard, stumbling slightly as he does. “Oh, fuck,” he adds, falling to his knees beside a trash bin and clutching the metal rim with a white-knuckled grip. Riz takes half a step closer to him, and stops. He can see Tem’s shoulders shaking, and his heart aches at the fact that he really shouldn’t be the one to comfort the alpaca. Suddenly, Tem’s body convulses, and he vomits into the bin, the sour acid smell of puke assailing Riz’s nose even at this distance.

Riz takes a few steps, unable to stop himself from trying to comfort his friend at the sounds of his distress. “Tem,” he says, reaching a hand out to pat the herbivore’s shoulder.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Tem chokes out between the ropes of chunky mucus on his lips.

Riz recoils as if he’s been stung, and sits down on the ground a few metres away.

“The Drama club is supposed to be about harmony between herbivores and carnivores,” Tem says after spitting out the dregs of puke from his throat. “How can you fucking be in there if you’ve eaten people?” Riz stiffens once again as Tem looks up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “You carnivores are all monsters,” he says with equal parts betrayal and disgust. “How many people have you eaten?” He demands.

“Tem, can we not talk about this here?” Riz tries, looking around nervously.

“How many people, Riz? ” Tem repeats, and to Riz’s surprise, Haru walks over and puts a restraining hand on the alpaca’s shoulder.

“I haven’t devoured anyone,” Riz says wretchedly, desperate to convince the two herbivores. 

“What’s the difference?” Haru asks, looking at him curiously.

“Well, most meat is sourced from people who are already dead, like from hospitals,” Riz explains nervously.

“And a Devouring is when they’re still alive,” Haru finishes.

“Which I haven’t done,” Riz adds quickly, although even he can tell he’s grasping at straws. 

“Why do you do it?” Tem asks, voice still full of accusation. “Why do you eat meat? What’s the point of having eggs and soy protein on the carnivore menu if you just go to the black market and eat people instead?”

Riz shifts uncomfortably. Talking about such topics with herbivores instead of pretending that places like the black market don’t exist is a huge taboo, something his parents told him never to do. “Carnivores don’t have to eat meat all the time,” he says, looking from Haru to Tem and back again. “They just have to every now and then to stay healthy.”

“You have to,” Haru corrects. “Not ‘they’ have to. If you’re going to do it, you shouldn’t hide from it.”

“What happens if you don’t?” Tem asks, cutting Riz off. “Surely there are some carnivores that don’t eat meat.”

“We get sick, or we lose it and attack someone,” Riz replies. “My uncle is kind of a specialist in treating meat addiction, and he’s done lots of research about it. I’ve seen the pictures, and they’re not pretty.”

“We can take it,” Haru says with absolute certainty.

“Some carnivores try to suppress their cravings with drugs and alcohol, doing anything to stop themselves feeling the hunger. Lots of carnivores who refuse to eat meat self-harm as well, but the ones that self-harm the most are those who’ve committed a Devouring,” Riz explains, thinking back to the harrowing wall of images that his uncle used to scare him into listening. “They chew off their own arms or rip all their teeth out with pliers to stop themselves from ever being able to hurt other people. Those carnivores that never experience the cravings but still don’t eat meat have shortened lifespans, brittle bones that snap if they fall over, their muscles waste away as their bodies try to fill the hole left by meat.”

As he speaks, myriad emotions flicker over Tem and Haru’s faces, and Riz almost regrets revealing this morbid information for the horror that passes over the herbivores.

“Legoshi self-harms,” Tem says quietly.

Panic begins to rise in Riz’s body as the alpaca looks up at him.

“You must have noticed, you are his boyfriend,” Tem continues. “He digs his claws into his hands when he thinks no one is looking. When he came to the gardening club he cut up his muzzle trying to block out the smell of the flowers, and Haru.”

“He also has other issues,” Riz deflects awkwardly. “He wishes he was a bug, rather than a carnivore, for example. He hates his instincts.”

That makes a smile flicker over Tem’s face and a chuckle escape his lips. “He would want to be a bug, wouldn’t he?” He says.

“Thank you for telling us about how carnivores get meat,” Haru says with an earnest tone of voice. To his growing surprise, the rabbit lets out a sudden laugh. “I just realised I didn’t introduce myself to you!” She says, still laughing. “I’m Haru, sorry for interrogating you after meeting you for the first time. Tem talks about you and Legoshi a lot, which is why I know your name already.” The small herbivore puts out a hand confidently for Riz to shake.

Carefully, Riz envelops her tiny hand in his and shakes it. “Nice to meet you,” he says.

Haru’s ear cocks towards him and she concentrates for a second. “Huh, I’ve just realised something,” she says.

“What?” Riz asks, and Tem shares in his look of curiosity.

“Whenever carnivores speak, there’s always a deep growling underneath it. Guess I’ve never been close enough to one to realise.”

~~ Jack ~~

“That was bad, like, really bad, right?” Miguno asks for the third time as Jack tries to get through the crowd, the hyena trailing behind in the small wake that Jack is making.

“Yes, it was bad!” Jack replies through gritted teeth as he elbows aside an antelope in his effort to find Legoshi. ‘ What am I doing, that was so rude! ’ He thinks to himself, almost stopping in his efforts to apologise to the herbivore he shoved. ‘No, if I slow down then the crowd will just get worse, and then it’ll be ages before I can get out, and I need to talk to Legoshi as quickly as possible.’

“Jack, slow down!” Miguno says, grabbing the labrador’s hand to not get lost in the river of animals.

As soon as there’s a gap in the right direction, Jack pulls Miguno out of the general flow of people and around the side of the building. Without waiting to catch his breath, Jack lets go of the hyena’s hand and strides along in chase of the familiar scent he can smell wafting through the air. When the tang of blood mixes in with Legoshi’s scent, Jack speeds up into a power-walk that has Miguno jogging to keep up.

“What are you going to do?” Miguno asks, and Jack ignores the sideways looks that he is getting from his roommate.

“I don’t know!” Jack replies angrily. “Probably slap that tiger, and then Legoshi, and then force Legoshi to go to the nurse again.” The labrador starts to form a rant in his head about his best friend’s lack of self-preservation, but he stops as he hears Louis’ voice berating someone. Jack slows suddenly, causing Miguno to almost run into him, and cocks an ear around the corner to hear what’s going on.

“I don’t care if you drank blood, Bill, I never expected you to have morals in the first place, unlike Legoshi.” Louis’ voice is commanding and hard, and Jack feels his body cringe as if he is the one being berated.

‘So Bill was drinking blood before the show? I can see why that would set Legoshi off,’ Jack thinks. ‘But that didn’t look just like predatory instincts on stage, Lego was pissed off as well. He’s never been that good at expressing his emotions, but why does he let them bottle up so much?! ’

“What’s worse is that you both used the stage as your own fighting ring and spilled blood on it! Would you have just killed each other if I hadn’t intervened?” Louis half-shouts, almost losing his composure. “I’m stripping you of your responsibilities and kicking you out of the Drama club for this, I hope you both learn from your mistakes.”

A sudden rush of footsteps over to where the three Drama club members are standing drowns out the reply from either Bill or Legoshi, and Jack presses himself back against the wall of the building to stop anyone from seeing him.

The newcomers turn out to be reporters from the school newspaper, and Jack stifles a giggle as Louis starts stringing together a lie of a performance that went off without a hitch and all according to plan. 

“This guy is such a bullshitter,” Miguno says under his breath as they both wait for the buck to finish his speech.

“We wanted to convey that, as long as someone has conviction, and acts with love at the forefront of their mind, that will shine through for the better. No matter if they’re impulsive, or rude, those things are most important,” Louis says, and Jack rolls his eyes at the not-so-subtle jabs at the two carnivores that were on stage so recently.

Legoshi’s words on stage swim to the forefront of Jack’s memory, and he frowns as he recalls them. 

‘What would you know of love, Reaper? You say you love this lost soul, but you have fought against and hurt those who used to see you as a friend! You use your strength only to hurt and stand on a pedestal of bones.’ That’s when Legoshi had started to attack Bill in earnest, punching with a strength born from rage and something darker mixing together.

‘Who were you thinking of when you talked about love, Legoshi? ’ Jack thinks as Louis finishes talking and the group of ‘reporters’ is turned over to the two carnivores. ‘Was it me? Riz? Or was it a herbivore? ’

The sound of Louis walking away and Bill taking over the interview pulls Jack out of his thoughts, and he peers around the corner again just in time to see Legoshi slinking back and away from the crowd of animals. Before the tall carnivore can escape, however, Jack marches around the corner with Miguno in tow and towards Legoshi, who freezes at the sight of him.

“Jack? Miguno? What are you doing here?” Legoshi asks worriedly. 

“We are going somewhere private to talk!” Jack hisses under his breath and grabs Legoshi’s hand, pulling him through the auditorium door and into a back corridor. None of the trio speak as Jack opens several doors until he finds one that looks like it’s used as a break room by the cleaning staff. After shutting the door behind them all, he rounds on Legoshi with his hands on his hips. “What the heck was that!?” Jack asks angrily. “I smell blood, Legoshi! Blood! And you can guarantee that every carnivore close to the stage could smell it as well!”

Legoshi’s ears pull back and he shrinks from Jack’s onslaught, but he still manages to look the labrador in the eye when he answers. “Bill was drinking rabbit blood before the show, and I couldn’t let him think it was okay,” Legoshi says.

“So you beat him up on stage?” Jack asks. “Is that really what you thought was a good idea?” He relents slightly, and steps forward to take Legoshi’s hand. “I’m worried about you, Lego! We both are!”

Legoshi looks between Jack and Miguno, and the last remnants of what powered him on stage leaves him like a deflating balloon. Jack can feel his heart sink at the sight of his best friend looking so dejected, but he says nothing, waiting for the larger carnivore to speak.

“Can we sit down?” Legoshi asks in a voice far smaller than himself.

Jack nods, letting go of his hand and looking around for some chairs. As he pulls a few out of a corner, Miguno turns to the small kitchenette in the room and starts pulling boiling water for cups of tea. Eventually, all three carnivores sit in a small circle holding warm mugs. ‘Maybe I’ve gone too far,’ Jack thinks, beginning to doubt his decision to ambush Legoshi like this.

“I know that fighting Bill wasn’t the best choice,” Legoshi says in his low monotone. “But it felt like that fight was inevitable. We’ve been butting heads for a while now, and this felt like the only way that he would understand. He’s a large breed carnivore, and it was instinct.”

“I don’t understand,” Jack replies, trying not to get frustrated so soon after things calm down. “It’s instinct to fight other carnivores?” He sees Legoshi and Miguno share a glance, and his brows furrow. “What?”

“Well,” Miguno begins, looking slightly uncomfortable. “It kind of is instinct to do that. It’s like a territorial instinct, except about your morals. You know how Durham and Voss get into arguments so much about anime? That’s a dulled down version, but it’s part of why they go at it so much.”

Jack feels his chest grow tight as Miguno speaks, and he has to stop himself from gripping his mug too tightly. The subject of instincts has always been a sore spot with Jack, especially when it comes to Legoshi. Dogs were genetically engineered from wolves for the war effort, to be soldiers and information specialists, and with that engineering, came the removal of those primal instincts that would stop them from being rational in a firefight. ‘ It’s not my fault I don’t lose my mind at the scent of blood, ’ Jack thinks to himself bitterly, and then kicks himself mentally for the implied insult. “It’s instinct,” he says aloud, a dull tone in his voice and a sour taste in his mouth.

Legoshi nods, looking visibly uncomfortable. 

‘Why is it that every time Legoshi gets in trouble, his answer is that he was driven by instinct? That’s not an excuse! ’ Jack takes a deep breath to try and calm his frustration. “At least you know it was a bad idea,” he says through slightly gritted teeth. “Are you and Bill going to keep fighting each other?”

“No, we talked afterwards and sorted things out with our words rather than our fists,” Legoshi says with a small smile. “He did, uh,” he adds, faltering in both speech and expression. “He saw my, um, my scales. He knows I’m a hybrid.”

“Was he mean about it?” Miguno asks, and his low growl tells Jack that they share a protective streak over Legoshi, instinct or not.

“No, he was actually really good! He even apologised,” Legoshi replies, his eyes sliding down to the cooling mug in his hands. “I’m just worried I guess. He’s not going to tell anyone, but if every new wound I get causes me to grow scales, it’s not going to be long before more animals notice. I mean, I’ve already had to change the subject when Kai asked me about the small ones on my muzzle, and I can only hide those ones because my fur is long for the winter.”

“We can figure out a way to hide them if you want to try doing that,” Jack says gently, putting a hand on the larger carnivore’s knee. ‘Sometimes I wish we could swap places Legoshi,’ he thinks mournfully. Now that he’s been reminded of them, Jack can see the dull green of a scale between the sparse fur on Legoshi’s muzzle. “I bet they’d be really pretty if you took care of them, though,” he adds aloud.

Legoshi brings a hand up to self consciously move his fur back to cover the scale from view. “I don’t think I want them to look pretty,” he mutters. “They’re just a reminder of everything wrong with me.”

An awkward silence settles on the trio, and Jack spends the next minute trying to come up with ways to cheer his best friend up without starting an argument. However, when faced with such unforgiving self-loathing, he can’t seem to think of anything to say. Jack sits there in agony, all the more painful for the knowledge that Legoshi is going through more than he can know.

“There’s nothing wrong with having a body different from other people’s, you know,” Miguno says gently, breaking the silence. “I should know,” he adds with a smile.

Jack watches Legoshi’s frown relax slightly, and he nods encouragingly.

“You said that hyenas are naturally androgynous,” Legoshi says slowly. “What did you mean?”

“Well, AFAB hyenas also have penises, for one,” Miguno says. “Or well, kind of penises, whatever, and also don’t really have boobs in the same way that other animals do unless we’re breastfeeding.”

Jack feels his face going red at the frank way that Miguno is talking about his body, and immediately feels silly for doing so, which makes him go even redder. “But I’ve seen female hyenas with boobs,” he says to try and banish his own embarrassment.

“Yeah, well, the rest of society expects women to have boobs, so lots of female hyenas use fake ones to blend in,” Miguno says in a voice dripping with contempt for the world. “I was told by my grandma to never change in front of other animals when I started going through puberty, and never even think about dating outside of my species. It’s a big secret.”

“Oh, thank you for sharing it with us,” Jack says.

“But if you’ve been living as a guy, isn’t it inevitable that someone will find out? Don’t you have periods? I feel like we would have noticed if you were bleeding regularly,” Legoshi asks, a look of serious contemplation on his face. 

“Legoshi! You can’t just ask things like that!” Jack gasps. “What if he’s sensitive about that stuff?”

“It’s alright, Jack,” Miguno laughs. “I know that Legoshi is just being curious, although for future reference, it’s not polite to ask a trans person stuff about their bodies unless they’ve shared it,” he adds. 

“Sorry,” Legoshi apologises.

“I said it’s okay. Anyway, I’ve been on medication to stop my puberty since I was eleven, and I started taking testosterone last year, so I haven’t had a period since before we met,” Miguno explains. “My parents are some of the few hyenas that are really supportive.”

“Few?” Jack asks.

“Yeah, because hyenas are pressured so much to blend in with society, anyone who steps out of that is basically ostracised, so it makes it a really hard environment for any queer people at all, especially trans people.”

“So why don’t you hide it more?” Legoshi asks quietly. “You didn’t have to tell us.”

“Coming out like that to everyone in 701 was pretty impulsive,” Miguno admits, giving an awkward laugh. “But I guess I just realised I was tired of it. I could pass as cis if I really wanted to, but then I would just be like the same hyenas that tried to stuff me back in the closet as a kid, wouldn’t I?”

Jack can practically see the gears turning in Legoshi’s head as Miguno’s words sink in. 

“Oh,” Legoshi says. After a long moment, he adds, “yeah.”

“Now,” Miguno says as he puts a hand on Legoshi’s shoulder. “Can we get out of here? I really need to get stoned.”

Jack wrinkles his nose in a frown. “You have to stop vaping so much,” he admonishes. 

“You might enjoy it if you tried it!” Miguno says with a grin. “What do you say, Legoshi? Want to get high as celebration of your performance?”

“I’ve already gotten high before, but I’d like to try it again,” Legoshi mumbles shyly.

“Alright, hell yeah!” Miguno laughs. “Let’s pick up that big bear of yours and we can hit the pen!”

Jack rolls his eyes as they get up from their seats and put the room back together. As the others stack chairs, he dumps out the now-cold tea from their mugs and gives each one a quick wash. ‘Maybe getting high will be good for Lego, to be honest,’ he thinks to himself as he bustles around the kitchenette. ‘He’s definitely going through withdrawal again.’

“You finished being a little housewife?” Miguno asks, prompting Jack to poke his tongue out at the hyena.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just get out of here,” Jack says. As they leave, he takes Legoshi’s hand and squeezes it, craning his head to give the larger carnivore a kiss on his cheek. “Just tell me if you need anything, okay?” He asks.

Legoshi nods and gives a tired smile. “I’ll do that,” he says.

Jack wishes he could believe him.

Chapter Text

~~ Legoshi ~~

“Alright Legoshi, get up.”

“Don’t be so harsh, Voss, you’re apologising, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, this shit doesn’t come naturally to me.”

Legoshi forces open his heavy eyes and stares at the extra scratch resistant pillow beside his own. Confusion sluggishly makes its way through his brain as it kicks into gear. ‘I feel like there should be someone else here,’ he thinks to himself, reaching one hand over to the space beside him in the bed. There’s still a little bit of body warmth trapped under the bedcovers, and Legoshi pulls the pillow close to him, burying his nose in the fabric. ‘Smells like bear. Riz? ’ The image of his boyfriend floats at the top of his mind, his smile and anger layered on top of each other into a twisted version of his face. ‘Is this really what I bring out in people? Jack was the same after the performance. I’m surprised they both still want to be around me.’

“LEGOSHI,” the voice comes through the curtains again, and this time he recognises it as Voss’s. “Dude, get out of bed so I can apologise and shit, and you better be wearing clothes when you do.”

Legoshi mumbles something unintelligible and sits up in bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He scratches his back absentmindedly and a claw brushes over the lines of dull green scales that stretch over his back. ‘Bill called them stripes, from one predator to another. He was right, too.’ Legoshi sighs as he pulls his underwear and shirt on. ‘It’s been a month since the performance, but lots of people are still avoiding me, including Tem. I guess I’m pretty recognisable, especially with that photo of me in the school newspaper punching Bill.’ The hybrid looks at his hands and frowns at the sight of his claws having grown back overnight yet again. The mutations have slowed down considerably, but his claws have become noticeably longer and slightly curved, and he keeps accidentally putting holes in his clothing. Legoshi pokes out his tongue, and curves it up so he can look at it. It’s still noticeably wolf-like, but the split down the middle has continued to lengthen, settling around five centimetres in length, and the skin has begun turning slightly yellow at the edges. Heaving another sigh, the hybrid swings his legs around and opens his curtains to sit on the edge of his bed.

“Finally,” Voss exclaims, skillfully dodging an elbow from Durham. All of the rest of his roommates are sitting in a semi-circle facing Legoshi’s bed, also in their underwear, and shirts. A large cloth sheet is laid out behind them that takes up most of the available floorspace between the bunks, and a number of scissors are lined up beside the sheet in a row. Finally, Legoshi notices something different about his roommates’ shirts.

“What are you all wearing?” He asks. Each of his roommates have small, brightly coloured, circular pins on, each featuring stripes of different colours.

“They’re pride pins!” Jack exclaims excitedly, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Yeah!” Miguno and Collot chime in at the same time. Legoshi sees that Collot is wearing a pin that has a rainbow capital ‘A’, and Miguno has a design with pink, white and blue stripes.

“We got them to support you, man!” Collot adds, tail thumping the ground as it wags.

Legoshi looks at the row of faces, almost all of them grinning, and doesn’t know what to say. It’s no secret that lots of queer animals are bullied at school, even large breed carnivores and herbivores, and it isn’t lost on the hybrid that his roommates are all taking a risk by showing their support. “Thanks,” he says lamely. “You don’t have to wear those around school, you know. There are lots of bullies around,” he adds.

“What?!” Voss says angrily, standing up with his hands on his hips. “I didn’t go through all the trouble of ordering these just so I could let some asshole bullies push me around! Fuck that!”

Legoshi’s eyes widen as the fennec fox speaks. “You ordered them?” He asks.

“Yeah he did! Without even being asked to!” Durham says. “He was trying to hard to be sneaky about it, but I can see his laptop screen from my bunk when his curtains are open.”

“Wait, what?” Voss turns to look at the coyote with alarm. “You can see my laptop from there?”

“Yeah, bro!” Durham laughs. “By the way, you should really close some of those tabs, it’s no wonder I can hear your fans blasting all the time.”

“That’s besides the point!” Voss interrupts before turning back to Legoshi. “Look, I know I said some really hurtful shit, and I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make it awkward back here in the room, and I knew that I was the problem, so I’ve been spending as much time away from here as possible. Now apparently that wasn’t the right move–” Voss rolls his eyes as Miguno says something under his breath, “–so I decided to get these instead. It’s fur-trimming day, and it’d feel weird as fuck not to do it with you guys, and I didn’t want it to be awkward anymore because of my dumbass, so there.” Voss looks expectantly at Legoshi as he finishes speaking, and the hybrid can smell the slight tinge of nervousness coming from the smaller carnivore.

“Alright,” Legoshi says. “I’m glad you don’t want it to be awkward either.” He looks at the sheet and scissors, no-doubt lined up by Jack as he always does. “Should be get started?”

“All that, and you don’t even want to chew me out or anything first?” Voss asks in disbelief.

“I believe you,” Legoshi says with a shrug, and his lips quirk into a rare smile. “Next time we play video games I’m going to destroy you, though.”

“Alright! Let’s get this fur off!” Collot says, standing suddenly.

As if a spell has been broken, the room erupts into activity, with everyone pulling their shirts off and finding their own customary spaces on the sheet. After a minute of concentration, Legoshi hears a familiar knock at the door, and his ears prick up.

“Can I come in?” Riz’s voice filters through the door. “I’ve brought food.”

“Of course, big guy!” Jack calls out, and the sound of Riz entering the room soon follows. When he sees the 701 residents in their underwear, some in very undignified positions, he stops and Legoshi can see his eyes widen. 

“I can come back later,” the bear says quickly.

“Nah, stay,” Voss says easily. “You’re part of the pack now that you’re fucking a third of it.”

Legoshi can feel a blush bloom on his cheeks, and he has to stop himself from coughing in surprise so as to not cut himself with the scissors. “Have you already cut your fur this morning?” He asks his boyfriend to change the subject against a background of sniggers. Riz’s fur is noticeably thinner and shorter than the day before.

“Yeah, bears do it by ourselves usually. This communal cutting is more of a canine thing,” Riz says as he sets several bags down, each with scents rising out of them that Legoshi can tell has captured the attention of his roommates, but which do little to stimulate his appetite. His sense of taste has still barely come back, but it’s slowly improving.

“How do you get the hard to reach bits, then?” Durham asks.

“We’ve got specially designed trimmers that are on poles, kind of like a back scratcher,” Riz replies, sitting down on what little floor space isn’t covered in the sheet.

Legoshi joins the rest of the room in staring at Riz in shocked silence. Helping each other with trimming fur for the hotter seasons has been a constant in his life, even since he was a baby. When he and Jack became friends, they learned how to trim fur with each other, plus the watchful gaze of Jack’s parents. When Legoshi’s mother first started to isolate herself in her room and the task of raising Legoshi fell to his grandfather, it was the need to trim his coat that led the komodo to reveal his species to Jack’s parents when he nervously asked for lessons. Legoshi can’t imagine doing it by himself, let alone owning a device specifically made to do so in isolation. 

“Next year, you should let me help you,” Legoshi says firmly.

Riz looks for a moment as if he is going to protest, but stops himself with a smile. “That sounds really nice,” he says.

The room returns to their work, and Miguno eventually strikes up a conversation with Riz about music and music production. Durham and Voss briefly strike up a debate about a video game, but are quickly silenced by Collot, whose armpits Voss is trimming, with a terse “I don’t want you waving those things around near my skin.”

“Um, Lego,” Jack pipes up with a nervous tone from his side.

“Yeah?” Legoshi replies without looking up from his work on Miguno’s back. ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ he thinks to himself glumly. All throughout the morning, the hybrid has been carefully ignoring the small pit of dread forming in his stomach.

“You know what we talked about after your Adler performance?” The labrador asks, and Legoshi can feel the eye contact that Jack makes with Riz, even if he can’t see it.

“They’re really noticeable, aren’t they.” Legoshi speaks like he’s making a statement instead of asking a question, and Miguno stiffens under his touch. Legoshi looks at the scissors in his hands and sighs.

“Yeah,” Jack says.

Riz moves over from his seat to Legoshi and puts a hand on his shoulder as silence blooms in the room.

‘Everyone will know that I’m a hybrid,’ Legoshi thinks. ‘And no one trusts hybrids. We’re supposedly more violent and erratic because of our clashing instincts, and now everyone is going to blame my fight with Bill on that.’

“Do you want us to hold off on the badges for now?” Voss asks. “Seeing as you’re gonna be coming out as a hybrid today anyway.”

Legoshi thinks about all the times he and his grandfather used to eat in the back of restaurants or have to play at night so that no one would see them and make trouble. All the times he had seen hybrids as the villains in movies or shows and heard people ask “is that what they’re really like?” without ever having any idea of the truth. As he stares at the scissors in his hands, a steely determination washes over him. “No,” he says in a low voice. “They’ll hate me whether I come out all at once or in stages. I’d rather get it over with.”

“Go big or go home, I like it!” Durham says enthusiastically.

“Voss?” Legoshi adds, looking from his scissors to the fennec. “Can you trim the fur on my face? There are some scales there, and I don’t know if I can trim around them in time to get to class.”

Voss looks nervous for a moment, but takes in Legoshi’s determined expression and nods. “Alrighty, just get your muzzle down here where I can reach and I’ll get those things to shine.”

~~

“Are those scales? What the fuck? ”

“Hey, isn’t that the wolf that decked the tiger during Adler? That fight scene was crazy! ”

“Yeah I think so, but look at him, he’s gotta be some kind of hybrid.”

“I’ve seen him around before and he’s always been a creepy fucker, I guess we now know why.”

“Scales? What’s wrong with him? Better not be a disease, he shouldn’t be allowed in class.”

“Ew.”

Comments and whispers follow Legoshi around all day and in every class. When it came to having territory time, Legoshi found himself being glared at by almost every other student in there, and he ended up  just leaving. The attending teacher didn’t do anything to stop the palpably hostile aura in the room, and there was no way he was going to try his luck with the komodo dragon students. Now, on his way to the Drama club room, Legoshi almost regrets not wearing the mask that Tem gave him all day, although the spring uniform reveals enough of his shoulder and neck that the scales there would be visible anyway.

Every look of disgust or anger is one he’s seen before, although only ever directed at his grandfather. During those times, he used to get expressions of confusion or sympathy, and some animals had even tried to ‘help’ him by offering to take him away from this reptile who had clearly kidnapped him. Today, those looks of sympathy have become directed at Jack and any other animal that has chosen to associate with him. Despite knowing that they were going to come, they still weigh heavily on the hybrid’s shoulders.

He reaches the changing room early enough that no one else is there and, after getting into their customary white shirt and red pants, wanders out into the club room. The empty space is familiar to Legoshi, having spent many evenings staying behind and cleaning the stage or fixing a light, and the lack of anyone else helps him to relax. Legoshi lays down on the floor and stares up at the ceiling, feeling the texture of his shirt pressing uncomfortably against his fur and scales. ‘That’s the other thing about these scales,’ he thinks as he shifts slightly. ‘My clothes are even more uncomfortable when they brush against the scales than my fur. How does grandpa do it? ’ Legoshi thinks back to his grandfather and what clothes he tends to wear. ‘Come to think of it, he usually just wears short-sleeve shirts and his work clothes, or shorts when at home. His scales always shine, too. Mine are so dull, like cut grass that’s been left for a while. I wish I didn’t have to wear clothes all the time.’

“So I told him that he can get screwed, just like that! And the whole class saw and heard!” Kai’s excited voice immediately fills as much of the space as possible as the mongoose walks through the doors, and Legoshi can hear Dom and Kibi’s familiar footsteps coming in with him. “He’s never gonna hear the end of it, especially from that girl he was trying to impress!” Kai adds with a cackle.

“Yes, well done, Kai,” Dom replies with a long-suffering, yet surprisingly tender tone of voice. “You really showed him.”

“Hey, Legoshi!” Kibi calls out, prompting Legoshi to sit up quickly, suddenly remembering that laying down in the middle of the floor is not something normal people do. “Have you seen the new club member yet?” The anteater asks. “I heard that there’s a new student at Cherryton that’s a hybrid, and he was heading here! I’m so excited, I’ve never met a hybrid before!”

Legoshi tries not to cringe at Kibi’s words, but he can feel himself curl up slightly, hiding his curved claws in his lap and shuffling his feet out of view as much as possible. “I don’t think there’s a new club member,” he mumbles, looking down. ‘ So the school already knows. I guess someone like me is big news. ’

“Oh, you haven’t seen him?” Kibi asks. “He must be around here somewhere, like three people told us on our way– ow! What was that for?” The last few words are directed at Kai. “You elbowed me really hard!”

“Bro, shut up! I thought herbivores were supposed to be observant,” Kai says.

“Anteaters have bad eyesight, it’s why I wear glasses in class!”

Legoshi feels someone stoop to kneel beside him and feels Dom’s comforting hand on his shoulder. “You alright, Legoshi?” The peafowl asks gently.

The hybrid looks away from the direction of the voice, but still unfolds slightly, holding his hands out in front of him so that the trio can see his abnormally shaped claws and the smattering of tiny scales around the back of his fingers.

“Oooooh,” Kibi says as he leans over to look at Legoshi’s hands. “So you’re the hybrid student– Ow! Quit it, Kai!”

Legoshi nods silently.

“I’m going to keep doing it when you cut that shit out!” Kai says with a flash of anger.

“Cut what out?” Kibi asks, bewildered.

“Kibi, how would you feel if most of the school was warning random students about you?” Dom asks, an exasperated tone in his voice.

“Well, bad, obviously…” Kibi trails off. “OH. Fuck! Legoshi I’m so sorry! I didn’t think about,” the anteater says, but Legoshi cuts him off by looking up.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, feeling wretched inside. 

“Yo! Legoshi!” Bill’s enthusiastic shout rings out, shorty followed by the tiger practically bouncing over to the small group. “I heard some people talking shit about you being a hybrid, so I told them to fuck off, just so you know.”

Legoshi looks up at Bill with a feeling of bewilderment. ‘We were almost killing each other only a month ago, and now he’s defending me to strangers? ’

“When did you get so friendly with Legoshi?” Dom asks, clearly defensive over the hybrid.

“After the fight, we had a real heart-to-heart,” Bill explains as casually as if they had just gone to get lunch in the cafeteria and hadn’t talked about Legoshi committing a Devouring. “We get each other more now, wouldn’t expect you to understand since you’re a herbivore. It’s a carnivore thing, sometimes we just gotta sort things out physically.”

“Is that true, Legoshi?” Dom asks.

Legoshi looks from Bill’s enthusiastic face to Dom’s dubious one. ‘ It’s true that things settled down after we fought, ’ he thinks, remembering the genuine empathy shown to him in the back corridor by Bill, and the strange relief at being able to talk to someone other than Riz about what happened, even just a little bit. ‘I never was allowed to playfight with herbivores, and then I grew way bigger than Jack really quickly, so I’ve never really tried to. Maybe I should try it out more.’ 

The hybrid nods and stands up, feeling a little more confident in himself and seeing various other members of the Drama club filtering in through the doors. Most of them cast suspicious glances his way, and several of them are outwardly fearful or disgusted, especially from Ellen, the zebra that accused all carnivores in the club of being dangerous after the Devouring of the alpaca.

“Yeah,” Legoshi says with an awkward smile at Bill. “Playfighting is a pretty normal thing for carnivores, although sometimes it can get out of hand.”

“Hey there, Bill, not trying to go for a second fight with my boyfriend, are you?” Riz’s voice rumbles as the huge bear walks over with a dark look at the tiger, whose fur briefly stands on end before he shrinks slightly.

“Whaaaaat, no of course not!” Bill says nervously.

“Are you scared of Riz, Bill?” Aoba asks as he makes his way to the growing group of animals. “It’s a good look on you, you should try being humbled more often.

“Alright everyone! Gather around!” Sanu’s voice echoes out through the room to grab everyone’s attention, cutting Bill off from trying to defend his honour, much to the disappointment of the group around him. Legoshi can feel Riz walk close to him as the club sits down on the mat, and he leans against the bear’s broad shoulder. They feel strong enough that he could hold onto them in any storm and still be safe. Riz’s arm curls around Legoshi’s waist and rests there. Before Sanu can start speaking again, Legoshi feels a nudge from his side, and he looks around to see Dom smiling.

“By the way, I like the pin,” the peafowl says quietly.

Legoshi’s tail begins to wag.

~~ Tem ~~

“The meteor festival is coming up, it’ll be nice having someone else around to help out this year,” Haru says as she and Tem pass by a poster for the event. “It’s always really busy for the Gardening club since we run a stall for it. We’ll need to have extra care for the plants so they’re nice and healthy to sell.”

“It’s still crazy to me that you’ve been running the whole club all by yourself for so long,” Tem replies, shaking his head before something catches his eye. “Oh! I think those need more water,” he says, striding ahead slightly to a vase with a few wilting daffodils in it.

“I wish I could see over people’s heads like you,” Haru grumbles as she catches up. As she gets close to the vase, her brows furrow and she takes it in both hands and gives it a critical look. “You’re right, the water needs to be changed,” she adds before looking up at Tem. “You’re getting good at this! Maybe you should become a horticulturalist, that long neck’ll come in handy.”

“I’m not that tall, some are over two metres tall, now that’s tall,” Tem says, but smiles anyway.

“I can think of a few animals we know who’d fit that bill,” Haru says as she turns away. 

At her words, Tem’s smile drops, and he stands still. A complicated twisting knot of feelings that he had been successfully ignoring until now bubbles back up into his chest like acid reflux. After listening to Riz’s descriptions of meat consumption, the alpaca has been waking up in the night with nightmares of dying and being sent to the black market after his funeral, but still remaining aware of everything happening to his corpse. It’s been bad enough having classes with carnivores, but the last thing that he wants to think about is Riz or Legoshi.

“Are you coming?” Haru asks, looking back at him from a few steps ahead. “The closest tap is in the girl’s bathroom upstairs.”

Tem purses his lips and follows her in silence. ‘Why did you have to bring them up, Haru? ’ He thinks angrily. ‘I actually managed to forget about the horrors of the world for a bit. Aren’t I allowed a little respite every now and then from the fact that animals I used to call my friends are regularly eating people? ’

“You know, if what Riz said is true, then you shouldn’t be so hard on them. I don’t think that he actually likes the idea of eating meat, it seems just like it’s about nutrition for him,” Haru says easily over her shoulder.

Tem almost chokes on spit as he gasps at the rabbit speaking of such taboo things so easily. “Haru! ” He admonishes.

“What? There’s no one around,” she replies, pointing to the deserted hallway.

“Keep your voice down when you talk about that kind of thing anyway! Anyone could be listening!” Tem insists in a low yet frantic whisper. “I don’t know why you keep bringing it up anyway, you should want to just not think about it! That’s what I’m doing!” He adds with more venom in his tone than he meant to express.

Haru turns around and stops suddenly as Tem finishes speaking, causing the alpaca to almost walk into her. The rabbit’s usually easy-going expression has turned into an angry frown, and she glares at Tem. “Don’t tell me how I ‘should’ react, Tem. You weren’t the one who was almost eaten, and you don’t get to talk to me about how I deal with it. If you do that again, then I won’t want to see your face ever again.” Haru’s voice is filled with indignant rage, and Tem finds his voice completely gone as he watches her turn once again and walk away as she fumes.

“Hey, Haru, I’m sorry!” Tem says as he hurries after her. He is so focused on trying to think of the right thing to say that he doesn’t see the foot that extends from a side corridor in time to warn Haru. Tem’s eyes widen with a gasp as the rabbit falls forward, vase smashing onto the ground and soaking her front with old dirty water.

“You got her!”

“Haha, that dirt suits her!”

“Guess she was too busy leading that male away to see where she was going, oops.”

Tem stands stock still with his mouth open as the voices come from the side corridor, followed quickly by three girls, led by a harlequin rabbit that must be the one named Mizuchi that Haru has talked about. The harlequin rabbit leans down and grabs Haru’s ears to lift her head up, and hot anger flares in Tem’s body, burning away the ice of shock. “Hey! Get your hands off her!” He yells, and all three bullies turn to him with looks of withering contempt.

“Go away, this is between females and doesn’t concern you,” Mizuchi says, still holding Haru’s head up by the ears. “I’m sure you can find this slut later on in whatever alleyway you usually fuck her in.”

As the bullies turn back to Haru, Tem stands in complete disbelief at the level of vile behaviour on display. He can’t seem to get his body to move, and part of his inaction is due to the fact that he doesn’t think he’ll be able to stop himself from throttling the harlequin.

“Oh, I get it,” Haru says, getting up and staggering back slightly to be in front of Tem. “You couldn’t get back together with your boyfriend, right? Maybe you should cry about it to your little gang.”

“And whose fault do you think that is?” Mizuchi snarls, standing almost taller than Tem, and striking an imposing figure with the extra height her long ears give her. “It’s worthless sluts like you that give rabbits a bad name and that are driving species like harlequin rabbits to extinction.” Her voice gets steadily louder and angrier as she speaks, and yet Haru stands there weathering the storm. 

‘What a great friend I am, my only clubmate is getting abused right here in front of me and I can’t do anything,’ Tem thinks to himself. ‘Why aren’t I saying anything? Why aren’t I moving?! ’

“You’re nothing but scum, Haru! You just ruin people’s love lives for fun because you’re a whore!” Mizuchi shouts, and Tem can see tears forming in her eyes.

“Okay, since I feel sorry for you, I’m going to teach you something,” Haru replies evenly before taking a deep breath. “YOU LOST. YOU’LL ALWAYS LOSE IN ROMANCE IF YOU’RE ALWAYS SO DESPERATE ,” she bellows, astounding Tem with the volume she’s able to achieve. “ How long are you going to bully me just because your ‘boyfriend’ doesn’t really like you, huh?! By all means keep going, I’ll be laughing the whole time because every moment you spend on tormenting me is the real reason your species is going extinct, and I WON’T CARE.”

Tem can see every one of the trio lean back slightly at Haru’s explosion.

“I slept with him because I wanted to and no other reason, I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend! But I don’t regret it, because unlike SOME PEOPLE, I’m sick and tired of living in denial and not facing the bad things in life!” Haru continues, and Tem feels the barb in her tirade bury into his chest. “UNLIKE YOU, I HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE. I’M FREE.”

“SHUT UP,” Mizuchi rallies, and begins rolling up her sleeves. “You are WORTHLESS, and anything you say is worthless too! You were talking about almost getting eaten before, right? I bet you served yourself up to whatever carnivore that was!” She steps forward with an evil sneer.

Tem can see Haru flinch at the reminder, and her shoulders have begun to tremble. The anger from before has been steadily increasing inside him during the shouting match, and he’s beginning to feel like a pressure cooker that’s been on the stovetop for too long.

“I bet the only reason that you didn’t get devoured is because they smelled too many males on you,” Mizuchi continues, taking another step forward. “I bet even your meat is tainted– OW! ”

The harlequin staggers back as the slap rings out through the corridor, and Tem realises after a few seconds that he was the one who hit her. Everyone around them looks at him in shock, and he looks down at his own hand, now throbbing with pain, in just as much surprise. It’s like he was standing behind Haru one second, and the next he had vented all the anger built up inside him all in one go.

“You fucking DICK,” Mizuchi shouts as she stands upright, and all three bullies start rolling up their sleeves menacingly.

Just as Tem braces himself for the worst beating he’s had in highschool so far, however, the trio begins to back away, ears pulling back and beginning to cower. With a look of terror, they turn and run, much to Tem’s confusion. “You can get eaten by yourself!” Mizuchi shouts over her shoulder, only adding to the alpaca’s bewilderment.

When he turns to look at Haru, he freezes. Haru gives him a puzzled look, and then realises that Tem is looking at some point above her head. Tem’s mouth hangs open in surprise and fear, rooted to the spot despite his instincts telling him to run screaming through the halls.

Looming above both of them with a look of barely controlled rage upon his face, lips pulled back to reveal the longest teeth Tem has ever seen, and with an acrid smelling goo dripping from his lips, is Legoshi.

As the sound of retreating footsteps die away, the monstrous wolf’s countenance returns to a semblance of his usually neutral demeanor. Wiping his dripping mouth with one hand, Legoshi turns his attention to Haru, and pulls out a handkerchief from his back pocket. 

“Do you need this?” He asks.

Chapter Text

~~ Legoshi ~~

‘What am I doing?! I bared my fangs to a herbivore! Even if it was to stop her punching someone, I could still get suspended just for that! ’ Legoshi thinks in a panic that finally cuts through the fog of rage and fear that had been covering his eyes until very recently. A small sizzle reaches the hybrid’s ears from the ground, and he looks down briefly to see his venom melting small pits in the linoleum flooring. Closing his mouth suddenly, Legoshi wipes his mouth hurriedly. ‘What do I even say after that? She’s covered in dirty water, and Tem looked like he was about to get pummeled by those girls.’

In lieu of explaining even the first thread in the long, complicated tapestry of his appearance, Legoshi holds out his handkerchief to Haru. “Do you need this?” he asks.

“Oh…” Haru says, looking up at him. “It’s you.”

Legoshi looks from Haru to Tem as the rabbit takes his handkerchief and begins to dry her head and ears with it. He hasn’t seen the alpaca since the performance of Adler, and the sunlight catching in his wool catches his attention. ‘Oh yeah, that’s how I got here,’ he thinks.

“How did you find us?” Tem asks, voice strangely soft.

“I was walking with the stage crew outside, and I smelled you and Haru, and then when I got closer I heard people shouting,” Legoshi rambles, eyes darting between the herbivores in anxious panic. “Then I heard that harlequin rabbit saying all those horrible things about you, Haru, and then I saw her about to hit you, Tem, and I don’t know what came over me.”

A giggle from Haru cuts him off, and she looks at Legoshi with a teasing glint in her eye as she dries off one ear with his handkerchief. “You came looking for us because you smelled us?” She asks.

“Not just that!” Legoshi protests.

“Why do you have scales?” Tem asks, and the hybrid’s chest tightens once again as he internally kicks himself for being so impulsive in seeking the herbivores out.

“I, uh, I’m a hybrid. My grandpa is a reptile,” Legoshi explains out of the corner of his mouth as he tries not to let any more venom drip out. He digs in his pocket for an anti-venom tablet and slumps as his hand closes on a near-empty packet. ‘I’m almost out, I’ll have to find some way of getting more,’ he thinks glumly.

“Is that why you ditched the stage crew? Were they bullying you?” Tem asks, surprising Legoshi with the insightful question.

“Well, actually, Fudge kept making noise saying how the stage crew shouldn’t get too much work this year for the meteor festival because I’ll ‘rage out’ apparently.” The hybrid looks away and rubs the back of his head as he speaks, a habit he’s picked up from Riz. “Lots of people keep thinking I’m going to try and fight them after my Adler performance,” he adds in a mumble that trails off into silence.

“Well, you did punch a guy on stage,” Haru says in a matter of fact tone of voice as she bends down to pick up the ruined vase and flowers. “Ah, I’m sorry little guys,” she adds, partially to herself. “I was trying to help and I ended up killing you.”

Legoshi looks at Tem over the top of Haru’s crouched form, and immediately finds himself pinned in place by the alpaca’s gaze. Expressions are hard enough for Legoshi to discern at the best of times, but this one is full of so many conflicting emotions that he can’t even begin to untangle them. The hybrid shifts his gaze to Haru, but that’s somehow worse. ‘Why is it that I keep getting myself into these situations when I can never find the right words to say? I’m such an idiot. Were they bullying you? Do they bully you often?’ Legoshi thinks, and the idea of those horrible girls picking on Haru and Tem stirs some part of him that he wishes he could bury and never think about again like that dingo. Although, he’d be kidding himself if he said he didn’t constantly think about that dingo. ‘I still can’t get him out of my head, his taste, the feeling of his flesh in my mouth.’

Legoshi feels his mouth begin to flood with saliva once again, and he gulps it down before pulling something else out of his pocket with a flash of pink. As the mask clips over his muzzle, it blocks out the scent of the two herbivores and brings blessed relief to his already buzzing brain, and he can feel his fur relaxing.

“Legoshi,” Tem says, getting both his and Haru’s attention. The alpaca shares a look with Haru, and then looks back up at Legoshi. “We need to have a talk. Let’s go get dinner.”

~~ Tem ~~

“So is this going to be it? You’re finally going to ask him?” Haru asks while she and Tem wait in line at the cafeteria. Tem shifts uncomfortably and steals another glance over at Legoshi waiting in the carnivore line. He’s still wearing the bright pink mask, and a few people have already given him strange looks, although the wolf hasn’t seemed to notice.

‘I guess I should stop thinking of him as a wolf, although maybe he sees himself as a wolf with some komodo dragon heritage,’ Tem ponders, trying to figure out how that even happened in the first place. ‘I never realised how much taller than other grey wolves he is until now, and his eyes have always been pinpricks in comparison to other canines. I wonder if his fangs are different, he definitely has venom.’

“Tem!” Haru says louder, making the alpaca come back to the present with a start.

“What?” He asks, shaking his head to banish any more thoughts about Legoshi’s fangs and the potential danger therein.

“I said, are you going to ask him about, you know,” Haru repeats and points to the patches on her forehead where the fur is minutely thinner from coming in contact with Legoshi’s venom. 

“Yes,” Tem replies with more confidence than he feels. “Ignoring him clearly isn’t going to work.”

“Yeah, and it’s dumb,” Haru says flippantly before stepping up and ordering her food before Tem can complain.

Eventually, all three converge on a table, and Tem notices how Legoshi carefully puts his tray down while endeavouring to hide his claws the whole time. ‘They really are like talons now with how curved they are,’ he thinks to himself. ‘He told me that they grow back each day. Must be hard to live with something that marks you out as dangerous to everyone.’

After Legoshi removes his mask and the trio begins to eat in silence, Tem can hear people talking around them. Some whisper, some murmur, but the majority are talking loudly enough that they must be trying to be heard.

“Hey! Check it out! That wolf totally grabbed those herbivores for his dinner! ”

“Neither of them look nervous, weird way to hunt…”

“I’ve heard wolves have big appetites, I guess the rabbit is for dessert.”

“That’s not a wolf, dude, he’s got scales, he must be that hybrid I heard about, they say he’s a faggot too.”

“Eeeww, what a freak, haha.”

Tem flinches slightly at the foul language, and looks up at Legoshi’s stiffening posture. The hybrid is clearly trying to ignore the comments, but his ears keep flicking towards their source. ‘If someone starts something, he’s going to lose it just like he did on stage, and just like it was when those carnivores started fighting in the cafeteria,’ Tem thinks to himself. “So how are preparations for the meteor festival going?” He asks aloud, trying to bring Legoshi’s attention away from the muttering around them.

“It’s going well, I guess,” Legoshi replies, grateful for distraction. “We’re going to be making a tyrannosaurus rex this year, although I really wanted to make a horseshoe crab.”

“But horseshoe crabs are still around,” Haru says. “Isn’t the meteor festival about the dinosaurs?”

“Well yes,” Legoshi begins, and his face lights up with enthusiasm as if all the negative feelings from before have been banished to the far corners of the world. “But their body plans and general biology haven’t really changed since the Triassic era, and I’ve heard they have really amazing oral histories! They also look kind of like bugs, which is interesting, since it means that morphology has been useful for millions of years!”

Tem can’t help but smile at the way that Legoshi’s ears begin to dance back and forth as he gets more excited at the topic. Tem knows he won’t be able to get a word in edgewise, but he doesn’t find himself wanting to, either. Something about seeing the hybrid so animated fills him with a warmth. Suddenly, Legoshi snaps his mouth shut and looks down, his whole body doing an impression of the flowers that Haru had been trying to save.

“Sorry, I got carried away,” Legoshi says, eating another forkful of his food. 

As his jaws close around the mouthful, his mismatched fangs flash for an instant, and Tem feels his legs tug involuntarily, much to his shock. Every time the hybrid chews or picks up his glass, a brief moment of panic runs through Tem’s body, as if it’s telling him to run for his life. ‘I’m so sorry, Legoshi,’ he thinks to himself. ‘I’m trying to work through it, but my instincts are still scared of you since that fight.’

“That’s okay! It’s cool how you know so much about some things,” Haru replies, and Tem notices her legs doing the same thing under the table.

“Yeah!” Tem adds. “Are you taking Seaspeak classes? Maybe you can ask a horseshoe crab about this stuff some time.”

“Yeah, but I find studying really difficult sometimes, I guess I get distracted easily,” Legoshi says, looking up from his food cautiously, as if Haru and Tem are about to play a cruel joke on him. “You said that we needed to talk, Tem,” he adds awkwardly. “What did you–”

A large hand smacks into the table between them, causing Legoshi to freeze, and Haru to yelp in surprise. Tem looks up the accompanying arm to the face of a huge male bison, about as tall as Legoshi, but much thicker-bodied and more well muscled. Flanking him are an unfortunately familiar horse and antelope. Almost immediately, Tem begins to count down the seconds to Legoshi flipping the table.

“Hey freak, you shouldn’t be on this side of the cafeteria, especially not with smaller herbivores,” the bison says, leaning into Legoshi’s personal space. “This isn’t your hunting grounds, psycho.”

Tem watches in stunned silence, once again rooted to the spot by surprise and fear, although this time he can’t exactly slap the offending herbivore to get them to shut up. To his even greater surprise, however, is the fact that Legoshi is leaning away from the bison, ears pinned back and posture wilting.

“Yeah, we’re looking out for our fellow herbivores, and we don’t like some meat-eating hybrid like you coming over here and pretending to be friends with people,” the antelope says. “You’re probably just sniffing out who’s vulnerable.”

‘Why aren’t you DOING anything Legoshi?! ’ Tem thinks. ‘You decked Bill on stage, you almost strangled that fox right here in the cafeteria, why are you just rolling over and taking it from this guy?! ’

The bison stares at Legoshi right in his eyes as he very slowly and deliberately starts to push the hybrid’s tray towards the edge of the bench. Tem watches as Legoshi’s eyes follow his half-eaten meal on its way to being wasted, and something clicks in the alpaca’s head. ‘That expression, it’s like he thinks he deserves it. He grabbed that fox because I was scared, but he’s never going to stand up for himself, is he? ’

“You’re the ones who should fuck off,” Tem says confidently, and several nearby animals audibly gasp at the comment. Unperturbed, he puts a hand out to grab the tray before it can be pushed onto the ground and looks at the bison. “Legoshi is a real friend, he always looks out for me, and you’re the second asshole herbivore who’s bullied a friend of mine. There is no ‘herbivore side’ of the cafeteria, and I don’t need some loser and his groupies telling me who to have dinner with.”

Legoshi’s eyes widen as Tem speaks, and all three standing herbivores turn their glares onto the alpaca.

“You’re that alpaca who’s always hanging around carnivores, aren’t you?” The antelope asks, glowering. “Of course you’d be easy prey for this freak.”

“Maybe I should kick both of your asses,” the bison muses. “We don’t want perverts like you bringing the meat-eaters into our dorm, maybe I need to teach you a lesson as well.”

“Xavier?” Haru asks, speaking for the first time since the bison showed up. As she does, however, the large herbivore’s expression changes into one of confusion and fear. “Do your friends know you like getting your nipples pinched?” Haru continues, smiling beatifically as Tem and Legoshi begin to gawp. “Or maybe you’d like me to talk about some other things you like getting done to you in bed?”

“Y-you–” the bison stammers, going red in the face with anger. “You slut ,” he rumbles.

“Your choice,” Haru says.

Tem looks between Haru and the bison. The bison looks at his flunkies and Legoshi. Legoshi looks at the bison with a feral glint in his eye that lit up when the bison insulted Haru. The bison looks down at the tray and Tem’s hand.

Then Xavier shoves the tray against Tem’s fingers so hard that he feels something inside his hand break.

~~ Riz ~~

“Did you have to get into a fight?” Riz asks, looking sidelong at his boyfriend as they walk to the Drama club. Legoshi shrugs, and Riz rolls his eyes. The hybrid came into class this morning sporting a black eye and several gaps in his teeth where some fangs had been knocked out, although new ones are already growing in. Now is the first time since seeing each other in class that they’ve gotten a chance to talk properly, and Legoshi’s avoidant behaviour is aggravating Riz. ‘He’s probably quiet given the news of that Devouring nearby this morning,’ he thinks to himself, trying not to get too frustrated. 

“It doesn’t help you seem non-threatening,” Riz adds aloud.

“I know!” Legoshi replies irritably. “I just couldn’t help it, he broke Tem’s fingers right in front of me!”

Riz frowns at that. “Okay, I understand then,” he concedes. “But still, what did principal Gon say?”

“He said that, since the bison started it, I was being let off with a warning, but I needed to stay out of trouble.” Legoshi sighs, taking Riz’s hand and leaning against his shoulder. “I just wish people would stop making trouble for me. I’m starting to think that maybe I should just quit school if this keeps happening.”

Riz’s eyes widen with shock and concern at the hybrid’s gloomy tone of voice. “What?” He exclaims. “Don’t do that, that’s just letting the bullies win!”

“I guess,” Legoshi mumbles.

Riz is about to say something more when they both look up at the sound of jeering. A vulture and a racoon, are harassing another student around a corner, one pulling at their hands and one waving a phone screen around.

“Hey Juno! The news said the leader of that Devouring gang was a grey wolf, sound familiar?” The vulture says, and Riz stiffens.

‘They’re bullying another grey wolf, I’d recognise that scent anywhere at this point,’ Riz thinks and both him and Legoshi stop a few metres away, neither of the bullies paying enough attention. ‘They can’t be older than first years. Should I say something? Legoshi’s already been through so much today, it wouldn’t be fair to let him take this on as well.’

Before his boyfriend can do anything, Riz lets go of his hand and steps forward, folding his arms and creasing his usually affable expression into a frown. Legoshi does the same, and both large breed carnivores let their bulks cast a shadow over the smaller students. Riz suppresses the urge to smile at the looks of fear that the first years turn on them. “What are you doing?” He asks in an even tone of voice

“None of your business,” the vulture squeaks, trying to seem tough despite the threat.

“Carnivores need to stick together when things like Devourings happen, you know,” Riz says, still with the same cadence that indicates that, while the end of the rope is far away, it is still approaching. “It’s hard enough when herbivores bully us carnivores, but it doesn’t mean that we should follow their example.”

“Uh, Michael, we should go,” the racoon says, tugging at the vulture’s shirt.

Riz takes grim satisfaction when both males run down the corridor. When he turns to the side, Legoshi is already crouching down on his haunches beside the student that was being bullied in the first place. The grey wolf turns out to be a female, and a very attractive one at that, if Riz had been straight. 

“Are you okay?” Legoshi asks gently. “Sorry for scaring those guys away, probably doesn’t help the reputation that large carnivores like us have.”

“That’s okay, thank you for saving me,” Juno says, still looking down at her hands as she clutches her knees.

“I guess I couldn’t just leave another grey wolf to get bullied like that, we tend to get bullied a lot after Devourings,” Legoshi says, and Riz lowers himself to sit cross-legged by the hybrid’s side. “You’ll get used to it by your second year,” he adds.

As Legoshi speaks, Riz puts one hand on Legoshi’s back to comfort him, thinking about the honey he used to have to consume in vast quantities just to deal with his migraines. The side-effects from his medication have gotten so much better since being open about them and being with Legoshi, but they’ve never gone away. Suddenly, a slight sob escapes Juno, and Riz can feel Legoshi’s body stiffen in slight panic as tears begin to fall into the wolf’s lap.

“I don’t want to get used to it! I don’t want to get used to being bullied,” she sobs. As she continues speaking, Juno curls her hands into tight fists, and her voice becomes tinged with frustration. “It’s so much worse than my previous school, and it’s not fair! The worst part is that, when I get angry, I just start crying, and that makes it worse! I just let it get to me so much!”

“I think it’s good that you get upset,” Legoshi says. As Juno looks up with a  questioning gaze, Riz sees the hybrid look down, likely to avoid eye-contact. “I used to really hate myself for how much I let the bullying get to me and my grandpa, but it was so tiring that I just started to pretend that I don’t care. You still care enough to get upset, that means you’re still strong.”

Riz watches Juno’s eyes widen at the sight of Legoshi’s black eye, and he can see them settle on the scales on his muzzle before widening further. “I wasn’t kidding with what I said to those guys, by the way,” Riz says, trying to head off the inevitable follow-up question. “Carnivores need to stick together, and it’s good that you wouldn’t bully other carnivores.”

The wolf’s expression shifts to a thoughtful one, and quiet falls on them. Eventually, Legoshi stands, followed by Riz. When Juno gets to her feet, her gaze falls on the way that Riz puts an arm around Legoshi’s shoulders to give him a gentle squeeze of comfort.

“You’re Legoshi, right?” Juno asks, completely blanking Riz. “My name’s Juno, I joined the Drama club recently, I’ve heard about you.”

“Ey? You’ve heard about me?” Legoshi asks in an awkward panic. “Sorry, I don’t know the names of the first years yet!”

“It’s okay! Sheila told me that there was a grey wolf second year in the club, and that he was kind,” Juno reassures, but her voice turns unsure and conflicted as she runs her gaze over the hybrid once more. “I guess she was wrong about one thing, but I’m glad that she was right about you being kind,” she adds.

The look she gives Legoshi is sweet, hopeful, and makes the hair on the back of Riz’s neck prickle. Something about the way Juno smiles and stands just too close to Legoshi makes the bear feel the stirring of something territorial, and he pulls his boyfriend closer to himself. “Well, nice to meet you, Juno,” Riz says with a smile that only Legoshi would be able to tell is forced. “We need to get to Drama club, I’m sure you know that it’s second years only,” he adds, with just a hint of sour with to add to her sweetness.

“Oh yeah!” Legoshi says, and his tail begins wagging behind him. “We should get there soon Riz, I don’t want to be late.”

“Oh, okay,” Juno falters, shooting Riz a loathsome glare when Legoshi isn’t looking. “Well, bye Legoshi! I hope to see you again soon!”

“Bye!” Legoshi replies as he turns to go.

“Bye, Juno,” Riz says.

~~~

“Okay then, last thing,” Louis says, squinting at a sheet of paper in his hand.

‘He looks tired. I wonder if he’s getting enough sleep,’ Riz thinks to himself. All of the second years are sitting in a semicircle facing Louis and Sanu, and Riz can tell that Legoshi is struggling to pay attention with how much the hybrid’s ears flick idly.

 “Riz, Tao, Aoba, Bill, and Legoshi are all going to go into town tomorrow after school and attend a meeting to coordinate with the mayoral office for the meteor festival,” the buck continues.

“Hey, you only picked carnivores,” Ellen pipes up, echoed by another second year herbivore. “We want to go as well!”

Louis brings one hand up to rub his eyebrows to hide his frown before answering. “You can’t have missed the news this morning about the Devouring, Ellen, all herbivores are barred from leaving campus until the culprits are arrested,” he says with a clipped tone of voice.

‘Yeah, definitely tired,’ Riz thinks. ‘He’s not usually that short with other herbivores.’

As if reading Riz’s mind, Louis turns his gaze towards him, more specifically eyeing Legoshi and Bill. 

“Here we go again,” Bill mutters under his breath from Legoshi’s other side.

“We’ve all seen what happens when carnivores give in to their violent natures,” Louis says, prompting a wave of shuffling and not-quite-grumbles from the carnivore students. “And it seems that it’s something that they find hard to resist,” he adds, looking at Legoshi’s black eye.

Riz purses his lips and resists the urge to wrinkle his nose. Anything close to a snarl would go badly, especially with the comment just made by Louis, but the buck’s constant reference to what happened is getting on Riz’s nerves.

“Will he ever drop it? ” Bill asks in a whisper as Louis stands and walks to the door.

“Oh, and one last thing,” the deer says, turning a proper glare at all of the carnivores he named. “Do not, under any circumstance, go to the Black Market.”

After Louis slams the door behind him, a shocked silence falls over the room. He had just mentioned one of the most taboo subjects in the world to discuss with carnivores, and in the presence of other herbivores no less.

“The Black Market?! ” Ellen shouts, standing up and rounding on the carnivores. “That exists?! I thought that was an urban legend! Isn’t that where carnivores go to buy herbivore meat and blood? I’ve heard all sorts of rumours about it!”

Riz feels his scalp tingle as suddenly all herbivore eyes gaze upon him and the others with suspicion. He feels several pin-pricks press into his palm and Legoshi grabs his hand a little too hard, causing his curved claws to dig into Riz’s skin.

“What? Only back in the old days!” Bill lies dismissively, cutting off the rising panic in the room. “The Black Market’s just where there’s loads of strippers and brothels! Louis was just saying that since we’re all guys going into town and carnivores appreciate that kind of thing, although Legoshi and Riz are probably safe from getting corrupted.” Bill jokes, nudging Legoshi in a teasing manner. “Hey, actually Ellen, since we both like stripes, maybe I can get you some porn mags there for you!”

“What?! Ew! You’re such a creep Bill!” The zebra replies, shooing him away, all thoughts of herbivore meat-selling purged from her brain with the thought of Bill going to a stripper.

“Hey,” Aoba says from Riz’s side. “Let’s get out of here before people start asking us.”

Nodding, both Riz and Legoshi follow Aoba out of the Drama club room and into the hallways, none of them talking until they get far enough away from prying ears.

“Phew! That was tense for a moment there,” Aoba says.

“Yeah, I’m glad we’re getting to go into town again,” Riz replies, half of his attention focused on the way that Legoshi is still clutching his hand.

“Hey, uh,” the hybrid begins, hesitating slightly. “Have you ever gone to the Black Market, Aoba?”

“Oh, you’ve never been?” Aoba asks, noticeably avoiding the question. “Most carnivores go by the time we’re adults. Riz, you ever been?”

“No, he hasn’t,” Legoshi says.

“Yeah, my uncle-in-law lives there,” Riz replies at the same time.

Riz feels Legoshi immediately drop his hand as the hybrid stops moving, and Riz turns to see him staring at him with his mouth slightly open and face pulled into a shocked expression.

“You what? ” Legoshi asks, a tone of betrayal in his voice.

Chapter Text

~~ Legoshi ~~

“Uh, we don’t have to talk about it,” Aoba says, looking between the two taller carnivores nervously.

Legoshi feels his heart begin to pound in his chest, and his fur prickle as it stands on end. An overwhelming mixture of emotions begin to build inside his body, wrapping around his lungs and making it hard to breathe. “I’ve been trying so hard this whole time, and you’re going to the Black Market this whole time?! ” He asks in a whimper that is slowly becoming a hiss. The thought of Riz eating meat brings up bile in his mouth, hot and acidic. ‘What kind of herbivores does he eat? Has he eaten alpaca? ’ Legoshi thinks in horror. ‘Does he cook them with all the skill he uses to cook pancakes? Or does he eat it raw? ’ Images of the brown bear tearing apart Tem’s corpse fill Legoshi’s mind, flesh rent apart and blood supped out of a body cavity. Legoshi’s stomach rumbles, and a wave of surprise is quickly followed by one of self-loathing. “Get away!” He yells as Riz reaches one hand forward slightly, trying to distract from his own disgusting reaction.

“You’ve been…what? Legoshi?” Aoba asks, hesitantly.

“Aoba, I’m so sorry, but you need to leave,” Riz says to the eagle, not unkindly, before turning back to Legoshi. “This is something Legoshi and I need to talk about alone.”

Legoshi’s gorge rises again, and he tastes acrid vomit on his tongue, purely from the sheer amount of emotions going through his mind at the same time. His carnivorous instinct battles with his upbringing of doing the right thing once again, and the thought of what happened last time he failed this battle makes him feel sick with guilt. As Aoba walks away quickly, Legoshi stumbles into a bathroom and sags to the ground. The world seems to be spinning, and every unexpected noise is a potential threat. Somehow, he finds himself on his hands and knees, dry-retching.

The sound of Riz opening the door filters in from somewhere far away, and Legoshi’s eyes take a few seconds to focus on the bear. He’s close, and clearly wants to comfort Legoshi, even in the hybrid’s sickened state. As he gets closer, Legoshi flinches back instinctively, snapping his mouth shut and shuffling backwards. 

“Stop!” Legoshi yells. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

‘Hang on, that’s not what I meant to say,’ Legoshi thinks in the calm that comes from feeling like you’re observing yourself from outside your body. ‘Why did I say that? Isn’t he the more dangerous one because he eats meat? Well, at least he isn’t the one that has to keep restraining himself from eating his classmates and friends.’

“You’re not going to hurt me, Legoshi, don’t worry,” Riz reassures gently.

Legoshi forces himself to take several large breaths, and the world stops spinning as much. After a long time and many more large breaths, he pants slightly, forked tongue lolling slightly out of the front of his mouth. Legoshi’s skin feels uncomfortable on his clothes, and a dull resentment towards Riz sits like a hot coal within his heart. “How could you?” Legoshi asks in a venomous growl. “When Tem is your friend? When over half the drama club are herbivores? How could you eat meat?”

“You’re not granting me the benefit of the doubt, then?” Riz asks, a glint of frustration in his eyes. “Not after what I did for you? I gave you a huge benefit of the doubt when I found you covered in dingo bits.”

Legoshi gasps, and Riz’s face instantly cringes in reaction to his words.

“Shit, I shouldn’t have said it like that,” Riz corrects himself.

“Just say what you were going to say,” Legoshi interjects coldly. He eyes Riz’s expression as it goes from regretful, to frustration again, then to hesitation, and finally settling on concentrated staring at the ground. Eventually, he looks back up at Legoshi with a determined look.

“It’s essential to being a healthy carnivore,” Riz says firmly, and Legoshi has to stop himself from biting back his immediate reaction. “It gives us nutrients that we aren’t able to get from a vegetarian diet, even with all the soy protein and eggs we could eat. Meat cravings and predatory instincts are in every carnivorous species, and even some herbivores will occasionally gain benefits from consuming certain meat or body products, especially from bones.”

Legoshi lets Riz’s lecture wash over him, each statement more enraging and confusing than the previous. “So you buy the corpses of peoples’ families?! ” He points out with a drawn-out hiss in his voice.

“Be honest with me, Legoshi,” Riz says gently. “Would you rather be eating remains that were going to be cremated anyway, or would you rather have what happened that night happen for every young carnivore on the planet?”

Legoshi opens and closes his mouth in shock. The direct nature of the question, coupled with the genuine and careful tone he’s ever heard, baffles him and eaves his brain scoured of any other thoughts to distract him with. “I wouldn’t want either one,” he says dully.

“Well, that’s just not how it works for most carnivores,” Riz says with a shrug. “Only very few carnivores can survive long term without meat, and fewer still don’t experience predatory instincts. Even then, they’re sick and weak. Why make a big thing of protecting and listening to herbivores if you are so sick, you can’t keep up with other carnivores who then hurt your friends?”

“Where do you even get this?” Legoshi asks incredulously, grasping at straws to keep the horrid knowledge that he might be wrong away.

“From my uncle, who is one of the only doctors in the country who’s actually doing research on this,” Riz replies solidly.

Bereft of any other excuse, Legoshi looks at the bathroom floor angrily, pointedly ignoring the bear. ‘I can’t believe that this is happening! ’ He thinks to himself. “But I’d be just like Bill,” he manages.

“What do you mean?” Riz asks, confusion in his voice.

“Bill buys rabbit blood from some senior and just sees it as this weird thing about it being something to be ‘proud of’ as a carnivore,” Legoshi explains. “He looks at a herbivore and he sees a price-tag.”

“Well, that’s why I try and get the person’s name as well, every time I buy meat,” Riz says. “It’s something I learned from my uncle in order to keep me from letting it get to my head.”

“Really?” Legoshi asks, surprise once again rippling through him.

“Yeah.”

“...”

“I don’t want this to push us apart, but I know what I’m talking about.”

Legoshi sighs. “I don’t know, I still feel weird about it,” he admits. “I know I’m being hypocritical since I’ve already devoured someone, but the thought of ordering people makes me just– ugh,” the hybrid says derisively.

“That’s fair, you don’t have to go to a foodstall, but you can get butchered cuts from a few places.”

“Okay, but if we end up there, I’m not going to eat anything,” Legoshi insists.

“Alright! You don’t have to,” Riz replies.

They stay silent for a long time, occasionally glancing at each other in the awkward quiet. Eventually, Legoshi stands without a word and takes a few steps towards the bathroom door, walking straight past Riz. What he just learned is proving difficult to reconcile with the loving and caring beast he fell in love with, and the hybrid barely manages to catch himself before leaving entirely. Legoshi turns around, and holds out a hand for Riz to take to get up.

“Thanks,” Riz says with a small smile.

“Don’t worry about it,” Legoshi replies in a mumble.

~~ Riz ~~

“So then she was like, ‘you’re so one-sided when we fuck’ or some other shit and cried and ran out!” Bill complains far louder than is polite, and Riz can see Legoshi wincing across the table from him. “And that was like, during sex,” Bill continues with a frustrated tone that Riz finds aggravating.

“Maybe she’s right?” Aoba suggests mildly, rolling his eyes at his friend’s antics.

“Nah, bro, you can’t talk to girls after something like that, they just don’t want to,” Bill says with the confidence of experience.

“Right, sure,” Aoba says.

“Agh, but her stripes were so hot! ” Bill exclaims.

“It really is just about the stripes for you, isn’t it?” Tao asks with a grin.

“Of course!” Bill confirms, matching the panther’s expression.

‘We’re the only ones who haven’t said anything yet,’ Riz thinks, glancing at Legoshi’s anxious demeanour. ‘Maybe I should make some excuse to change the topic.’

“Every species is into their own thing!” Bill states, glancing sideways at Legoshi and Riz. “Like how Legoshi used to smell of bear all the time. I heard that canines have things about scent, since your noses are so good. So was that something you’re into, Legoshi, or was that a bear thing as well?”

Riz is about to tell Bill to piss off when Legoshi’s frown suddenly melts away and the hybrid shrugs casually.

“Actually, it’s mostly me, but I don’t know if I have a thing for a body part like you, Bill. It’s more about what we do for each other,” Legoshi says calmly, and picks up a fry from his tray.

‘That was…weirdly confident,’ Riz thinks to himself, surprised by his boyfriend not immediately backing down. Riz stiffens as he sees Bill’s tail flick angrily a few times.

“Yoooooooo, get burned, Bill!” Tao says excitedly at what he probably thinks is friendly banter.

“Ha, you’re right!” Bill says after a moment, and Riz untenses.

“I don’t know,” the brown bear rumbles with a smile at the corner of his lips. “I like your body parts as well as what we do for each other.”

“Oh smoooooth,” Bill cackles.

As the conversation drifts away from the two, Riz sees Legoshi’s face split into a genuine smile as they both get enveloped in a sense of normality that feels like it’s been sorely missing from their lives for a while now. Warmth spreads through Riz’s chest and over his shoulders, lightening them considerably. Ever since their little group left Cherryton for the meeting about the Meteor Festival, a strange discomfort has stuck around between Riz and Legoshi, and it’s been making him feel bad in an indescribable way. But the playful ribbing and inclusion into the others’ social circle makes that tension disperse like so much mist in daylight.

‘I guess we both needed this,’ Riz thinks to himself.

“Shit, it’s already six,” Aoba says while looking at his phone. “We should head back.”

“Damn, you’re right,” Bill replies, standing up and going to head out of the store.

Riz follows the others as they follow Bill, ending up at the back of the group with Aoba, who occasionally calls out a direction out from his phone. The eagle keeps stealing glances between Riz and Legoshi, and on the third time, Riz intentionally catches his gaze and raises his eyebrows. “It’s rude to stare, you know,” the bear says, quiet enough that only Aoba can hear.

“Sorry,” he apologises in his own hushed tone. “It’s just that it seemed like you were both kind of having a fight for a while, and I don’t want to have caused any tension, you know? I’m sorry if I did.”

“It’s alright,” Riz says magnanimously. “It was going to come up eventually.”

“So you’ve actually eaten–” Aoba begins.

“Yeah,” Riz interrupts, looking around to see if anyone else is around, let alone any herbivore. Thankfully, however, the streets are largely deserted for some reason. 

“Hey when are we getting back to the station?” Bill asks, and Aoba frowns at his phone once more. “Yo, Aoba, what’s going on?” The tiger adds after a long period of silence.

“We’re lost,” Aoba announces.

“What?! ” Bill exclaims, and immediately begins bickering with the eagle.

Riz drifts to the front of the group while the two carnivores argue, and he finds Legoshi joining him silently. ‘I wonder if he’s still mad at me,’ Riz thinks idly. “What’s up, pup?” He asks quietly.

“I just can’t see how eating meat can ever be good,” Legoshi says bluntly, as if they had been talking about the subject the entire time.

Riz blinks a few times from the mental whiplash, but manages to recover before his boyfriend can run away from the conversation he started. “It keeps herbivores safe. At least, the meat that isn’t from murdering people,” Riz replies. “A carnivore that regularly eats meat is much less likely to hurt and devour a herbivore. It’s part of how our biology works.”

“That explanation is so…medical,” Legoshi mumbles. “I don’t think I can be happy with just a set of biology facts.”

“My uncle’s a doctor,” Riz says lamely. 

“I thought you couldn’t get lost! ’ Bill’s voice filters through the air from a few metres away where he and Aoba are still going at it. “Like there’s something in your head! Some magnet or something!”

“How many times do I have to tell you,” Aoba says hotly. “I’m not a migratory bird.”

Legoshi rolls his eyes to Riz and walks a few steps away, crouching down to talk to an old male saiga, who is sitting on a small blanket. As he does, something clicks in Riz’s mind. ‘Hey wait, I recognise that guy,’ he thinks to himself. As Legoshi begins asking the man for directions, Riz takes a closer look at the architecture around him, and cold certainty spreads through him. ‘Wait a second, I recognise that arch. I didn’t before because of how distracted I was, but we’re definitely here. Wait. SHIT.’

“Holy fuck!” Bill exclaims as a truck moves away from the arch and light spills out into the street.

~~ Legoshi ~~

“Hello sir, um, would you be able to do me a favour?” Legoshi asks the older herbivore. Something tugs at the back of his mind that something is wrong, but he ignores it. ‘ As much as I don’t want to admit it, I am a lot stronger since committing a Devouring. This old man can’t do much to hurt me .’

“Of course,” the saiga says in a weak, withered voice that makes Legoshi’s skin crawl. To the hybrid’s horror, the old herbivore holds up what’s left of his hands; many of the fingers have clearly been bitten off, and the rest of price-tags dangling from them.

The smell of carnivore saliva and herbivore blood mix in the air around the stumps and waft into Legoshi’s nose like perfume. All other things in the world begin to fall away from his perception as his senses focus their considerable powers on the meat in front of him. ‘No! He’s not meat! He’s a person! ’ Legoshi thinks to himself hurriedly, but he can’t quite manage to pull himself away from the taste-tester hands. ‘Oh Rex, I feel so…hungry.’

“Your teeth are odd for a grey wolf,” the saiga says, putting his remaining fingers on Legoshi’s fangs, and the hybrid can see now that the old herbivore is almost blind, using his ruined hands to feel what he should expect from his next customer. “But your jaws are strong,” he continues in his whispy voice. “If you take a finger all in one bite, I’ll give you twenty percent off.”

‘But he’s slowly losing his main way to experience the world,’ Legoshi thinks, somehow managing to think clearly through the red and purple fog that swirls in his vision. ‘He should be in a rest-home, not selling his own body parts! ’ He pulls back from the saiga just as Bill exclaims.

“This is the Black Market!” The tiger adds excitedly before turning to Legoshi. “Legoshi! You’ve got one already? Wow!”

The price tags flutter in the breeze from his movement away from them, but the image of them is seared into Legoshi’s brain, and it makes him almost feel like he’s going to vomit. As he backs away and instinctually towards Riz, Bill pushes into the space Legoshi recently vacated. The hunger makes his mouth go dry and flood with saliva at the same time, and his stomach feels suddenly empty despite the takeaway they had a few hours before. Legoshi feels his heart begin to pound in his chest, and his gums start to fizz as his venom gets neutralised by one of his last tablets. After stumbling a few steps, Legoshi feels Riz’s strong and familiar hands catch him. He grips Riz’s arms tightly in an effort to steady himself against the overwhelming tide of temptation.

“Are you saying that you’ll let us eat your finger if we pay you?!” Bill asks the saiga with a mixture of desperation and glee. “Hey guys, we can pool our money together!” He suggests excitedly, facing back to the other carnivores.

When Bill turns that expression onto Legoshi, something revolts inside him. All of the shameful desires that he has had to fight against for the past two months roil within him, each urging him to do awful things. However, in contrast to Bill’s naked eagerness to eat part of another living creature and take advantage of poverty, they seem almost tame. The fact that the tiger is suggesting they all go down the same disgusting route as him once again twists the hunger inside Legoshi to rage. With a hiss so loud and sudden that even Riz loosens his grip momentarily, the hybrid takes a few boiling steps towards Bill.

“Don’t fucking come at me, Legoshi!” Bill shouts, a snarl leaping to his face as he stands up straight and puffs out his chest. “We fucking talked about this already, and you’re not putting your weird trauma-moral bullshit onto me!”

“Legoshi, back off!” Aoba joins Bill’s side, to the surprise of both larger carnivores. “If we were at school, I’d tell Bill to stop too, but look around you!” The eagle gestures to the alleyway filled with light and horribly tempting scents. “We’re in the Black Market, and we’re carnivores. Even your boyfriend understands!” Aoba looks around Legoshi’s shoulder to Riz with a pleading expression. “Can’t you help? You said you come here all the time!”

Legoshi turns his attention to Riz, and their conversation in the school bathroom plays in his head on repeat. ‘You think of it all so medically, don’t you, Riz? ’ He thinks. ‘I guess that’s how you detach yourself from the reality of eating people.’

Riz shrugs as he steps forward. “We’ve talked about it,” he says simply. “And yeah, I eat meat,” he adds, ignoring the way that Legoshi’s fur shivers.

“Thank you!” Bill exclaims, exasperated.

“Hold on, I didn’t say we should eat this guy’s fingers,” Riz continues, prompting a groan from the tiger.

“Why not!?” Bill asks angrily, and Legoshi looks back at Riz again, a light cutting through the black clouds gathering in his mind.

“One, that guy is just here because he’s poor,” Riz points out. “Live meat like that is the last resort of poor herbivores, since loads of carnivores pay extra for the ‘thrill’ of fresh blood.” He makes a face as he speaks, and both Tao and Aoba mirror his expression. Even Bill seems to be taken aback by the words. “Two, eating meat should be about nutrition, and that guy is old and probably malnourished, no offence. I know some places we can get high quality, reasonably priced meat, if you all really want to. And three,” Riz adds, looking around the whole group. “This shouldn’t be a spur of the moment thing. Only bad things happen when carnivores do this without thinking about it. So if you all want to go into the Black Market, we should sit down somewhere and make a proper decision.”

‘He’s so good at commanding a presence,’ Legoshi thinks. ‘He should have been an actor. The only thing I know how to do is lose my temper with other animals.’

“Fiiiine,” Bill says, rolling his eyes and walking away from the saiga with Tao. “Sorry granddad, maybe another time.”

Legoshi holds his head high above the look of satisfaction that Bill gives him, but falls in beside Aoba behind the two felines. “Sorry,” he mumbles to the eagle, not trusting himself to open his mouth enough for any potential drool to fall out.

“It’s alright,” Aoba replies. “But dude, you have to get your anger in check,” he adds under his breath so Bill and Tao can’t hear. “I heard about that fight you got into at the cafeteria, and you’ve been way more…just, aggressive in general. It’s so different to the guy I’ve known for the past three and a half years, I’m kind of worried if I’m being honest. You know, you can talk to me any time.”

‘How would I explain everything to you? How would I explain anything to you? ’ Legoshi thinks. “Yeah, I’ll try,” he says aloud. As he turns to look for Riz, Legoshi ignores the sigh that escapes Aoba’s beak. The bear catches up to the waiting group quickly, clumsily putting what looks to Legoshi like his wallet back into his pocket. Looking back to the saiga, Legoshi sees that the old herbivore is rolling up his blanket hurriedly and stuffing something into his coat.

“Sorry, I’m here,” Riz says, giving Legoshi a smile.

Legoshi follows with Aoba still at the back of the group while Riz leads them deeper into the Black Market. Everywhere the teenage carnivores look, there are whole goat legs suspended on hooks, glistening loops of sausages on benches, hearts and kidneys and other offals vacuum packed inside plastic laying in ice bins, pickled eyes floating in brine, juicy red steaks being seared to perfection, the smell of oils and fats rendering down on hot pans and inside ovens congeal withthestrangely pungent stinkof raw hunger roilingoff of other carnivoresand sweet sweat comingfrom the salespeople as theyhawktheirwares,shoutingabouttheir delicious foodandall the Blood and th–

“Legoshi,” Aoba says, nudging the hybrid and pulling his attention away from their surroundings. “Did you hear me?”

“Hm, what?” Legoshi asks, slightly guiltily.

“I asked if you’re okay,” the eagle repeats with his eyes rolling slightly. “Clearly not.”

“Sorry, it’s just that–” Legoshi starts before gesturing to everything around him, “–it’s so…”

“Wrong?” Aoba suggests, and Legoshi nods without saying anything. “Yeah.”

“You suggested we stay and eat meat,” Legoshi points out confusedly.

“Things can be necessary and still be bad,” Aoba says with a somber shrug. I don’t like the idea of being locked up, but gotta do something to punish people who do things like murder.”

Legoshi says nothing to that, and they spend the rest of the walk in silence while Bill points things out to Tao like a kid in a candy store. ‘Is this a prison for you, Aoba? Do you think all carnivores should be punished for craving meat? ’ He thinks to himself. ‘Should we be punished, even if we’re born with it?’ Legoshi clenches his fists slightly, and his curving, sharp claws catch on the cuff of his jumper’s sleeves.

“We’re here,” Riz says to the group, and opens the door to a store that, on the outside, doesn’t look much different to the other diners. When they enter, however, Legoshi instantly notices a shift in the atmosphere. 

A few older men play chess on a table close to the door, and Legoshi almost bumps into the back of one of their chairs as he gets into the store. The smell of cheap filter coffee and deep fryers dominate the space, much like the takeaway place the group had been eating at earlier in the day. Bill looks like he’s about to scoff at the store, but even he stops when a family of badgers walk past him and out of the door. All of the teens, except Riz, all stare in surprise at the four children that hang off of, or run around, one of the badger parents. The eldest can’t be more than ten years old, and the youngest can’t be less than five.

“See you next week, Choki!” The less distracted parent says over their shoulder and they open the door to leave. “Say goodbye, kids!” They add

“Goodbye Mrs. Albu!” The children chorus before exiting, the youngest a little behind the rest.

“Goodbye children!” A lilting, accented voice from behind the counter says in tones full of love. “Oh, Riz! Look at you, you are growing the bigger and bigger every time I am seeing you!”

Legoshi turns, dumbfounded from seeing kids in a place called the ‘Black Market’, to the counter, where a huge bearded vulture now stands wiping her hands on an old teatowel. She’s almost as tall as Riz, and easily the bulkiest bird Legoshi has ever seen, and the apron that she wears doesn’t quite fit around her whole waist. 

“Hey Mrs. Albu,” Riz says, a little shyly. “Is there a table free?”

As the bearded vulture looks past riz, her eyebrows go up in a surprise that changes quickly to elation. “You know there is always being a table here for you, especially for you have brought friends!” Mrs. Albu says with a beam on her face. 

Riz ushers the still silent group to a table and sits down, laying out some menus on the table. After a few seconds of them all looking at him for an explanation, Legoshi sees Riz’s ear twitch, and the brown bear looks up from his order. “What?” Riz asks.

“What do you mean ‘what’?!” Bill hisses under his breath. “You said you ‘know a place’ like we’re going to a drug dealer, and it’s this weird ass mom and pop diner in the middle of the Black Market! What the hell is the deal here!?”

Legoshi finds himself nodding in agreement with Bill, and stops himself out of spite.

Riz sighs, and puts his menu on the table again. “Eating meat for the first time is a big deal, and if anything happens or it brings up stuff for anyone, it’ll be better for us to be in a safer place out here than in some dingy noodle house where we’ll get robbed, or worse,” Riz says. “Also, this is the only place in the market that I trust to have good quality meat for decent prices, since they buy straight from the sources and not through a trader,” he adds.

“That makes sense,” Tao says thoughtfully before Bill can say anything.

“Alright, fine!” Bill says, picking up a menu dramatically.

When Tao, Bill, and Aoba are looking through the menu and occasionally pointing things out, Legoshi looks to his side at Riz, and finds the bear looking back at him already. Legoshi’s gaze wanders around the diner once again, eyes flicking to a few delivery drivers drinking coffee quietly with each other, to the old men playing chess, and back to Riz. The sensations in this place aren’t trying to force their ways into his brain like they were on the street. Legoshi gets the distinct feeling that, even at rush hour, the place probably never gets packed like some of the showier restaurants were as the group walked past them. Somehow, in the middle of the Black Market, the owners of the diner seem to have carved out an oasis of calm. 

‘Just like Riz did for me,’ Legoshi thinks. Slowly, he reaches one hand over the table and takes the bear’s in his own. He feels Riz’s hand tighten for a moment on his wrist, and the smile on his face ceases to be an uneasy one. “Thank you for showing us this place,” Legoshi says quietly.

“Okay I am ready to be taking orders!” The accented voice of the bearded vulture announces as she bustles over to the table with a pen and notepad. Legoshi can see now that she wears a dress under her apron. “Riz, What are you be having?”

“The pork sausages and mashed potatoes, please,” he says politely with a smile, still holding Legoshi’s hand.

Mrs. Alba writes down the order happily, eyes glancing at their hands on the table and deepening the smile in her eyes.

“The pork pho,” Tao says cautiously. “Uh, please. Mrs. Alba,” he adds.

“A beef shank with peas!” Bill says, licking his lips excitedly. 

“Um. I think I’ll get pho as well, thanks,” Aoba says, little half-heartedly.

Legoshi merely shakes his head in silence.

“We do vegetarian dishes as well,” the bearded vulture prompts gently.

“I can’t taste it,” he mumbles, trying to think of the quickest way to not buy food somewhere here.

“Oh, I know, I will ask one of our chefs, no problems!” She says easily. “They will be cooking something you will enjoy.”

“Uh, Mrs. Alba, Riz said that you buy meat straight from the sources,” Aoba says slowly, ignoring Bill’s groan. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Oh, you will have to be asking my husband these questions,” Mrs. Alba says before turning and raising her voice slightly to be heard in the kitchen. “Paul! My dearest! Riz is here and his friend is asking about supply, would you come out and tell him?” She half-shouts in her sing-song voice, noticeably emphasising that Riz didn’t come by himself this time.

A muffled “coming! ” Filters out from the other room, and the bearded vulture goes back from their table with the list of orders in hand. As the huge bird rounds the corner to the kitchen, the doors open, and a much smaller figure emerges and the pair share a few words and a kiss before continuing past each other. As Legoshi watches, the short stature of Mrs. Alba’s husband prevents the hybrid from seeing what he looks like. When he turns the corner of the counter, however, Legoshi’s mouth drops for a second time since entering the diner. 

‘He’s a marmot,’ Legoshi thinks dully. ‘He’s a herbivore. And he cooks meat?! ’

“Hello!” Paul says as he gets closer, pulling a seat closer and climbing onto it to talk to talk at Riz’s eye-height. “You wanted to know about supply? I work directly with two hospitals and a funeral home that my family owns, and I can assure you, all of our cuts are fresh and come from good sources. They are one-hundred percent free of preservatives or any embalming chemicals.”

“You’re a fucking herbivore?! ’ Bill exclaims, aghast.

“Language, young man!” Paul says sharply before his features settle back into their middle-aged joviality. “Yes, I am, and I’m married to a carnivore, and I cook meat for other carnivores, can you tell I’ve said this before?” He says teasingly. “What, expect that you’d never have to see a herbivore in the Black Market? Are we that scary?”

“No!” Bill protests. “I just thought it’d be, I don’t know, private from herbivores, or something!”

“You’ll have to go back and talk to herbivores even after you leave here, so there’s no point pretending that the Black Market and the rest of the world aren’t connected, because they are,” Paul says with the air of someone giving a fatherly lecture. “If you have a problem with that, you don’t have to eat here.”

“No it’s okay!” Bill hurriedly says.

Paul gives a small grin and a wink. “That’s alright then,” he says, and hops down from the chair before Bill can say anything more, ambling back into the kitchen. 

“This is fucking weird,” Bill mutters, but doesn’t get out of his seat.

Soon, the table begins talking about mundane things, spurred on by Bill behaving only mildly more polite than he was in the takeaway store, and once again the blanket of normality settles itself over the group. Riz tentatively goes to kiss Legoshi, but the latter pulls away slightly before their lips can connect.

“My venom,” Legoshi says apologetically. “I think I’ve used my last tablet.”

Riz shrugs and smiles anyway.

“Your orders are here!” Mrs. Alba says, holding a large tray in each hand, both of which have bowls or plates on them. The meals each have small lids on them to keep in the heat, but she expertly remembers which ones go to whom, and she directs as such. As the others take off the lids, a bouquet of scents arise from each dish and mix together in a mouthwatering miasma. Legoshi cautiously lifts his own lid, and eyes the dish carefully. Almost as soon as the aroma reaches his nose, he knows that there’s something wrong.

It’s a thick kind of curry with a heavy sauce covering nameless lumps on a serving of rice. Another, darker sauce has been spooned over the dish as a clear addition, and something about it puts Legoshi’s teeth on edge. His breathing slows as he tries to discern what exactly the problem is, but there are so many other appealing scents nearby that it’s getting hard to do so.

“Shit, I thought you were getting him something vegetarian!” Riz says.

“I thought so too!” Mrs. Alba says, clearly taken aback by Riz’s outburst. “I asked for something that is flavourful! So flavourful someone that cannot taste could enjoy.”

Legoshi’s blood runs cold in his veins as the bearded vulture explains. ‘The main times a carnivore loses their sense of taste is after committing a Devouring,’ he thinks to himself, remembering what Jack said before he went to the infirmary with Legoshi and Riz. ‘That means that someone out in the kitchen knows exactly what I meant, even if Mrs. Alba didn’t. Someone else knows.’

The hybrid flicks his increasingly more forked tongue out of his mouth and waves the tines above the dish before retracting it between his lips. The snapshot of scents explode into his brain like a firework. There’s potatoes, coconut cream, turmeric, paprika, garlic, salt, and yet Legoshi searches deeper, even as Mrs. Alba goes to ask the kitchens what is in the meal. There’s something sour in there, but it’s sweet as well. They mix together so strongly that it’s almost impossible to tease them away from each other. Legoshi’s stomach gurgles and churns at the same time as he realises one half of the mystery ingredients.

‘It’s blood, two different kinds,’ he thinks to himself, flicking his tongue out again. ‘One is a carnivore, maybe a mustelid? And the other is…’ Legoshi looks up at Riz in panic, fear, and he can feel his emotions welling up inside him once more, like a blocked drain that is finally going again, pushing out all the congealed slime and filth up first.

“It’s alpaca!” Mrs. Alba says happily.

“Oh fuck,” Bill says.

Riz drops his cutlery.

Legoshi stands up so suddenly his chair hits the ground, and he breathes heavily, looking around at the other faces. Tao, the old men, Riz, the truckers, Aoba.

"Legoshi? Is there something you need to tell us?" Aoba asks.

Legoshi runs.

Chapter Text

~~ Riz ~~

“LEGOSHI, STOP!” Riz roars,The chair hits the counter with an audible cracking sound, but Riz doesn’t care. He rushes as fast as he can towards the door, chasing blue-grey fur and dull green scales as they disappear into the bustling night-time streets of the Black Market. Riz knows he isn’t fast enough, knows he will probably never be fast enough to catch the hybrid, but he runs anyway. Legoshi’s tall, yet thin, frame is the ideal shape to clear a small path ahead of him and slip through without leaving a wake large enough for Riz, and the bear is quickly swamped in the crowd of smaller animals. His heart aches as he reaches out for Legoshi’s quickly retreating form, trying to grasp across the distance and grab him. Fear clenches its talons into Riz’s stomach and his breathing becomes shallow as he starts walking back into the diner. The others are all standing around the table in various levels of distress.

“Riz! Where’s Legoshi?” Bill asks as he walks over. When he gets closer, however, he stops and pulls up a chair from a table. “Sit down, bro, you don’t look so good.”

Surprised by the care shown by the usually brash tiger, Riz automatically sits down.

“Yeah, what’s going on?” Tao asks. “Did Legoshi really commit a Devou- ow! What was that for?”

“His boyfriend’s just run off into the Black Market, give him some space!” Bill says, massaging some feeling back into his fingers after clipping the panther around the ear.

Riz closes his eyes and grips his knees while he tries to take deep breaths to slow his pounding heart and get a grip on his rising panic. After a few moments, another chair is pulled up beside Riz, and the familiar scent of Mrs. Alba’s orange-scented perfume wafts over him. A feathered hand rests on his arm, and he opens his eyes to see the bearded vulture looking tenderly into his.

“Riz,” she says, quietly enough that only he can hear her. “You know he will be fine. Your uncle will find him.”

Riz nods wordlessly, thickly swallowing past his anxiety.

“But for now, your friends are all waiting for you to be comfort to them,” she continues seriously. “They are scared, even the big loud one, and you have brought them to the market. You are the biggest carnivore here, they are looking to you.”

“I know,” Riz replies hoarsely. He looks over at the trio of other carnivores and catches Bill’s eye. In that moment, he sees past the tiger’s confident facade, and gazes upon the scared teenager that he really is. “Okay, I can do this,” he adds, mostly to himself. 

“Why don’t you all go upstairs?” Mrs. Alba suggests as she stands. “You still know the way, Riz?”

Riz nods and stands, leading the way behind the counter and up a set of stairs made quite narrow by a quarter of them having been converted into smaller stairs for the marmot resident. Eventually, they all sit in a small lounge area, Tao and Aoba on a couch, Bill sitting uncomfortably in a large armchair, and Riz on a chair brought in from the adjoining kitchenette. The room is sparsely decorated, not having much room for decorations in the first place, although a mantle over a small fireplace is crowded with photos in frames. ‘ I’m in there somewhere, when I was first brought here, ’ Riz thinks to himself briefly.

“Riz, I’m sorry, but I have to know,” Aoba says, piercing the silence and leaning forward. “Did Legoshi devour the alpaca at school?”

Riz looks around at the faces once more. Aoba’s expression is a facade of forced calm over panic and guilt. Tao is generally uncomfortable with the whole situation, and he keeps picking invisible blemishes from the end of his tail. Bill is crossing his arms and looking hard at Riz.

“No,” Riz says, and relief visibly washes over Aoba’s face.

“But,” Bill prompts.

“But he did commit a Devouring, yes. About two weeks later,” Riz says seriously. As he does, Tao accidentally pulls a tuft of fur out and winces, Aoba’s face drops once more, and Bill… Bill stays the same. ‘You knew, didn’t you? ’ Riz thinks.

“That’s when he started acting weird, do you guys remember? He hated being alone with anyone other than Riz,” Bill says.

“Yeah, and he started putting lemon and shit on his food constantly, I could smell it on his breath, it was awful,” Tao comments.

“So who did he devour?” Aoba asks quietly.

“It was a dingo who came onto school grounds one night when we were watching for teachers so Louis could rehearse Adler with Zoe,” Riz recounts with a grimace. “They got into a fight and he…” he trails off, hoping that none of the other three would pick up on the missed out details.

“Got carried away,” Bill says with a sigh, still crossing his arms. “Always the hero, isn’t he?”

“So how do you know?” Tao asks.

“I helped bury the body,” Riz replies simply. “He’d already eaten most of it, and it was a small dingo.”

“They.” Aoba’s voice is flat, but bubbles with emotion under the surface.

“What?” Bill asks.

“They were a small dingo,” Aoba repeats, tears beginning to brim at his eyes. “Don’t just talk about them like a piece of meat.”

“The guy was coming onto school grounds to eat someone, Aoba, come on,” Bill says with a roll of his eyes.

“Anyway,” Riz interjects before another fight can start. “I know where Legoshi has gone, or at least, I know where he’ll be.”

“Where’s that?” Tao asks, looking at his other two friends nervously.

Riz sighs, and looks out through the window at a familiar tower that rises over the Black Market. “To see a doctor,” he says.

~~ Legoshi ~~

‘Where am I? It’s so dark, and cold. Why can’t I smell anything? What was I doing? ’ Legoshi’s thoughts fill the empty space of the concrete room he finds himself kneeling in the middle of. ‘I’m chained up, and I think I have a muzzle on? What the hell kind of place is this?! Am I about to get butchered? How did I get here?! ’ Casting his mind back, the hybrid remembers running through the Black Market, dreadful hunger filling his stomach and venom filling his mouth. The smell of cooked alpaca meat triggered a rush of emotions and desires that he has tried to suppress ever since devouring the dingo. ‘I remember running, all the smells of the market, and– oh Rex, I was thinking of how it could have been Tem in that food. I haven’t seen him in a few days, he could have died and been turned into meat in that time. Why can’t I stop drooling?! ’

The door to the cell creaks open, letting in a large figure that looks vaguely familiar and a dulled stench of cigarette smoke. Legoshi looks up at the silhouette in confusion, mind still being assaulted by multiple powerful carnivore instincts. 

“Riz?” He asks weakly.

The figure stops for a moment with its hand halfway to the lightswitch. “No, but I know what I’m asking him next time he comes over,” the figure says in a gruff tone of voice. As it flicks on the light, Legoshi sees that the person is a bear, yes, but he’s a panda, not a brown bear. “How are you feeling? Pretty bad, I’m guessing. Sorry I dulled your sense of smell, but it’s the only way to calm down canids’ instincts enough to bring you in,” the panda continues as he pulls up a chair and retrieves a stethoscope from a drawer by the door. “Although you aren’t all wolf, that’s clear by your scales. So what are you mixed with? Skink? Gecko?”

Legoshi doesn’t make a sound at the questions, nor does he move. Anger and fear at being confined is simmering in him, and with his canid instincts dulled, his komodo instincts are beginning to take over. Bitter venom seeps into his mouth from his gums, having long ago eaten away the effectiveness of his tablet. As the panda gets closer and sinks down on one knee to reach forward with his stethoscope, Legoshi moves his tongue to collect as much venom as possible into a single gob.

“I need to check your heartbeat and breathing,” the panda says as he roughly pulls up Legoshi’s shirt.

Suddenly, Legoshi lunges forward, cracking his forehead into the panda’s nose and spraying venom from his mouth with what little space the muzzle allows him. HOwever, the noxious fluid doesn’t get any further than a sheet of heavy plastic over the muzzle, which begins to bubble and smoke. The smell so bad that it cuts straight through whatever the panda used to dull Legoshi’s senses, and he starts coughing profusely.

“Fuck! ” The panda shouts angrily, reeling back with one hand over his nose. “You little shit!” He adds as he stands up, fists clenching and unclenching with the naked desire to get revenge for Legoshi’s aggression. Instead, however, he pulls an ancient-looking flip-phone out of his back pocket and walks out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Through the eye-watering smog of melting plastic, Legoshi can hear the panda calling someone. “Hey! Yeah, yeah, shut up. You in the area? Good. I’ve got a hybrid in here that just tried to spit komodo venom at me and I need you or one of your gang to help me get a handle on him. How do I know? I’ve patched up or buried enough folks who’ve been on the wrong end of your venom enough times, I can tell. What? He’s part wolf, why the fuck does that matter? Good, be quick.”

A surprisingly small amount of time passes before another set of footsteps makes its way down the corridor outside, and the panda is joined by someone else.

“He’s in there? The wolf hybrid?” The new voice asks, slightly muffled by something.

“Yeah, little fucker headbutted me right on the nose,” the panda replies.

The door opens once again, and Legoshi stops halfway through glaring at the newcomer. He’s a komodo dragon with a large filter mask over his mouth that looks like it’s made for cleaning up industrial chemical spills. He wears a leather motorcycle jacket, and a large scar runs over his left eye. Where the panda reminds him of Riz, this person reminds him of…

“You’ll be Legoshi, right?” The figure asks in a deep yet smooth voice, sitting down on the chair confidently. “You’ve grown up to be a real scrapper, judging by what would be scars on a normal beast, guess it’s something in our blood, huh.”

‘He sort of looks like… grandpa? ’ Legoshi thinks to himself, looking at the komodo with abject confusion. He tries to say something, but the muzzle stops his mouth from opening more than a few millimetres. Just enough for him to spray venom through his teeth, but not enough to speak.

Wordlessly, the komodo walks forward and begins to take the muzzle off of Legoshi’s head. As he undoes the leather straps, the venom starts filling Legoshi’s mouth again, and he can feel his body tensing in anticipation. When one of the straps flicks forward into his vision, he feels his body moving on automatic, snapping at the leather and the hand that holds it. Before he can sink his teeth into the komodo’s arm, however, a scaled fist collides with his muzzle with a sound like meat on a butcher’s block. Pain blooms on Legoshi’s cheek and tears well up in his eye as the stranger sits back. Legoshi coughs a few times and spits out a bloody tooth onto the ground.

“That was me holding back because I know what the instinct to snap at shit is like, but don’t you ever, ever bare your teeth or try and bite me, or Gouhin, or spit at him again.” The komodo’s voice is filled with menace as he sits back down in the chair. Leaving the muzzle on his lap, the komodo takes off his own mask and holds it in his hands. “Gouhin called me because he’s never had to deal with another komodo before, and I owe him a favour,” the komodo says, dropping his voice down so the panda can’t eavesdrop. “But between you and me, he’s really doing me a favour by calling me in here to see you.”

Confusion rises in Legoshi, and he can feel his fur rising up on end. “What do you mean?” He asks. “Who are you?”

The komodo chuckles, a knowing smile gracing his reptilian features. “The name’s Savon,” he says. “Your grandad’s my older brother.”

~~ Riz ~~

“Choki seems real nice, cool of her to let us use some takeaway boxes,” Bill says as they all walk through the Black Market once again. They ended up still eating at the diner after formerly apologising for the ruckus and paying for a new chair, as Riz knew that there wasn’t any point looking for Legoshi before he got picked up by his uncle. Although, with all that happened, none of the teenagers except Bill managed to finish their meals.

“Mrs. Alba,” Riz corrects vaguely, still distracted by thoughts of what’s happening to Legoshi. The bear has seen enough of his uncle’s patients to know that it’s not a nice process. “You’re only allowed to call her by her first name if you’re over twenty-one.”

“Huh, I guess she is foreign,” Bill says with a shrug. “Aoba, you sure you don’t want any of your pho?”

“I’m sure,” Aoba replies tiredly. “I just keep thinking of all the herbivores in Drama club, and I can’t make myself.”

“Probably doesn’t help that ‘Mrs. Alba’ put the names of who the meat came from on the boxes,” Bill grumbles. “Whatever, more for me then.”

Soon, they turn the corner onto the block of the imposing high-rise of the Panda Clinic, and Riz lets out a breath of relief as he sees the familiar doors. What’s unfamiliar, however, is the motorcycle left out on the road beside the clinic.

“Seems dumb leaving that out here,” Bill comments as they walk past it. “Surely it’ll get stripped for parts in this part of town.”

Riz’s brow furrows as he sees the large stylised ‘D’ on the side of the bike, with a little ‘s’ beside it. “Not that one,” he says as he holds open the door for the others, still eyeing the bike. “That’s a gumi bike. It’s a death-sentence to even touch it.”

Bill’s eyes widen at the mention of the organised crime gang, but he says nothing as he walks into the building.

“Looks like Alphonse isn’t in tonight,” Riz says to himself as he comes inside and sees the empty reception desk. “Bill, pass me the food.”

“What? Why?” The tiger replies, bringing the boxes closer to himself protectively.

“We’re in a clinic for people who have meat addictions, so there’s no meat allowed on the premises,” Riz explains, patience beginning to wear thin. “It’d be like bringing meth into a rehab facility.”

Bill looks like he’s going to argue for a moment, but he passes the boxes over anyway, grumbling to himself. Riz stows them away in a fridge behind the desk, and leads them to an ancient-looking, yet huge, lift that’s large enough to house the largest carnivore species possible. Tao’s tail swishes nervously as the contraption grinds its way to the upper floors of the building.

When the doors open, Riz leads the group down a dark, windowless corridor, past several heavy metal cell doors, and towards a brightly lit area at the end of the hall. As they get closer, the familiar smell of Gouhin’s living room/kitchen envelops the group, and serves to settle Riz’s nerves a little. Stale cigarette smoke, drying laundry, and bamboo tea all mix together into the welcoming scent that has helped to raise Riz since he was first sent to Cherryton at the age of thirteen. However, when he walks into the lounge, Riz stops suddenly, causing Bill to walk straight into his back.

“Who the fuck are you?” Riz growls at the strange komodo dragon sitting in his uncle’s living room. He knows that this person, whoever they are, is probably part of the Dokugumi, and probably the owner of the bike outside, and the gang-patched leather jacket hanging on one of the chairs. But the fact that they’re sprawled over one of his couches, drinking his tea, and reading what looks to be a porn magazine, makes his fur stand on end and his nose to curl into a snarl, even if they’re wearing an old fashioned pair of reading glasses over their filter mask.

The stranger glances up from his magazine, carefully places his glasses to mark the page he was up to, and stands up from the couch. The shirt he’s wearing is missing its left sleeve, and the exposed scales gleam in the bright yellow light like polished gems. As he stretches slightly and takes his first step towards Riz, the bear gulps. He can tell just by looking at him that, even wearing a mask to stop his venom from getting out, this komodo dragon can beat the shit out of him without breaking a sweat.

“I’m Savon, boss of the Dokugumi,” Savon says, his smooth voice reverberating through the filter of his mask. “I’m assuming you know Gouhin somehow; not just anyone waltzes right into his clinic without being really fucking stupid, so I’ll forgive you this time for being so uppity. I was called in by Gouhin to deal with a patient.” The komodo runs his cool gaze over Riz and the others once more, and Riz can hear Bill gulp nervously behind him. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m his nephew,” Riz says, mouth suddenly dry.

Savon nods wordlessly. A moment of tension pulls out into what feels like minutes as the komodo locks eyes with Riz.

‘His eyes don’t change at all, they’re just like Legoshi’s,’ he thinks. ‘But he doesn’t have fur, or wag his tail, I can’t figure out what he’s feeling at all. Is this what Legoshi would be like if he was a full komodo? ’

Eventually, Savon shrugs, turns around, and flops back on the couch. “Gouhin’s getting his shit ready to interview the patient, who I assume you know, and then I’ll be going in to make sure he doesn’t try and kill the panda again with his venom,” he says casually, folding a corner of the page he was up to in his magazine and putting it back on the table. “Not like I’m gonna read porn with a bunch of kids, so I’ve got nothing better to do.”

“Whoa, wait up, Legoshi tried to kill someone?” Bill asks incredulously as he walks past Riz and into the lounge. “Man really has gone off the rails.”

Riz glares at Bill, but says nothing. The idea that Legoshi could lash out that easily and recklessly makes him feel uncomfortable to say the least, especially when his own uncle was in the firing line.

As if reading his thoughts, Gouhin appears from a storage area at the end of the lounge carrying a notebook and an old polaroid camera on a tripod. When he sees Riz standing in the doorway, his permanent scowl deepens slightly. “When I finish with this kid, you and I are going to have a talk about how you know a teenage hybrid Devouring offender, who just tried to spray me with komodo venom,” he growls before walking past. “Savon! Get your ass in here!” He shouts over his shoulder.

The komodo stands up with a small smile on his lips. “See you ‘round, kid,” he says as he pushes past.

Riz stands in the doorway looking down at the floor silently. A dull pain that’s been building ever since leaving the diner finally sharpens into the familiar stab of a migraine behind his eye, and Riz clutches his head with one hand. Ignoring the squawk of alarm from Aoba, Riz leans against the wall and sinks to the ground with a groan.

~~ Legoshi ~~

“Alright, let’s try this again, shall we?” Gouhin says as he sets up the camera and sits down in his chair. Savon walks in after the panda and leans on the wall, feigning disinterest. Despite his body language, however, Legoshi can see the glint in the komodo dragon’s eyes every time they catch each other’s gaze. “When did you devour a herbivore?” Gouhin asks.

‘SNAP,’ goes the camera. Legoshi winces from the flash.

“I’ve never devoured a herbivore!” Legoshi protests angrily. “Where the hell am I?! Who are you?!”

“Easy there,” Savon warns in a low voice, making an imperceptible movement towards the hybrid. “Remember what I said about not baring your fangs. Just because you’ll grow ‘em back, doesn’t mean you can go flashing ‘em around.”

Legoshi subsides slightly, the pain on his cheek still fresh. “I haven’t devoured an herbivore,” he repeats, looking at the ground sullenly.

“Carnivores that have a panic attack at the Black Market have almost always committed a Devouring,” Gouhin says matter-of-factly. “The guilt eats you up, traumatises you, and when your instincts are activated again by the smell of meat, it all comes up again in a flashback.” The panda leans forward in his chair and lowers his voice to a deeper growl. “So, when did you devour a herbivore?”

‘SNAP,’ goes the camera again.

Legoshi opens his mouth to snap back an answer, but stops himself. Venom wells up from his gums and threatens to spill out of his lips in sticky strings. Anger courses through his body, but it’s modulated heavily by his ever-present undercurrent of shame. “I almost attacked a herbivore, but I stopped myself!” he says, adding the second half quickly. One cheek begins to bulge slightly with venom, and Savon tenses his muscles.

“Don’t go spraying anything, kid,” he warns.

“I’m twying not to,” Legoshi says out of the corner of his mouth.

Savon rolls his eyes and leaves the room for a second, coming back with a bucket that he puts in front of the hybrid. The bottom is filled with a white powder that looks similar to whatever the anti-venom tablets are made up of. “You can spit into that.”

Legoshi gratefully lets out the mouthful of venom, which fizzes and bubbles slightly as it interacts with the powder in the bucket.

“When I found you, you were delirious and drooling,” Gouhin states. “You even tried to attack me, although I doubt you remember it. If you had just ‘almost’ attacked a herbivore, you wouldn’t have been so ready to take a piece out of me.”

“You know, it doesn’t have to have been a herbivore he devoured,” Savon says knowingly.

Legoshi whips his head around with a look of betrayal, and Gouhin rubs his eyebrows with one hand as he sits back in his chair.

“Fucking Rex, I forgot you komodos are cannibals,” he mutters. “Alright then, well when did you devour a carnivore, then?”

“About two months ago,” Legoshi admits, slumping forward as much as his chains will allow him to. Shame and guilt flood out from the careful dam he has built around his psyche as the memories of tearing the dingo apart fill his mind. Worst of all is the memory of how good it tasted. “I almost attacked a rabbit at my school, and then I saw a carnivore on campus that wasn’t wearing the uniform who started chasing her as well. When I bit him, I think I got venom in him, and he ran away.” Legoshi looks up at the two older animals with desperation in his eyes.

“I started following him, I don’t know why, I just felt like I needed to. When I found him though, he had vomited up deer meat and there was,” Legoshi gulps, momentarily interrupting what is quickly becoming a ramble. “There was so much blood, too much blood. I saw he had eaten someone, and I had stopped myself from eating Haru, so I thought that I should eat him instead, oh Rex, I’m a fucking murderer.” Legoshi starts to openly cry, tears streaming down his muzzle and mixing with his venom in the bucket. His sobbing is the only sound in the cell for a few long moments before he hears Savon take a few steps closer and kneel down beside him.

“It’s alright, kid,” the komodo says in a voice edged with the brittle kind of tenderness that comes from not exercising it that often. Legoshi feels a hand patting him on the back hesitantly, and his chains clink slightly. “Gouhin, gimme the keys for these, would ya? Thanks.” After a few seconds, a lock turns, and the bindings fall away from Legoshi’s wrists. “That instinct to bite and then circle back is natural for us,” Savon continues gently. “It’s how our species used to hunt, way back in the day.”

“How is it okay?” Legoshi asks hoarsely.  “How will I ever be okay?”

“With some time, and lots of therapy, it’ll happen,” Gouhin says from his chair. “Lots of carnivores have gone through what you’ve gone through, and I’ve helped them through it. That’s what I do here, I’m the psychiatrist and guardian of the Black Market.”

Legoshi looks up at the panda and frowns suspiciously. “You promise?”

“I can promise that, if you also do the work, you’ll get better,” Gouhin says. “Now, have you had any more predatory urges? Any more cravings?”

Legoshi nods. “They went away for a while, but when Riz took us to that diner, I got served alpaca meat accidentally, and they got set off again.”

“Hang on, alpaca?” Gouhin asks. “You said rabbit before, why would alpaca meat be important?”

“I, uh, Riz and I have a friend who’s an alpaca that we both like,” Legoshi says, and Gouhin’s fist tightens on his pen when his nephew is mentioned. “I’ve had, um, dreams about him.”

“Uhuh, and what kinds of dreams are these?” Gouhin asks. “Savon, wipe that grin off your ugly mug, would ya? I’m trying to work here,” he adds sharply.

“Sorry, sorry,” Savon apologises as he stands back up, hiding his chuckle behind a cough, albeit not very convincingly. “Just didn’t expect to be hearing about my grand-nephew’s wet dreams is all.”

“They’re not sex dreams!” Legoshi says hotly. “Well, not mostly,” he adds with a mumble. “But in some of them, he offers bits of himself for me to eat. I never would! And in the dreams, I never do eat him! And I would never eat Haru either! I’m going to tell her and apologise to her–”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Gouhin interrupts. “You’re still in contact with these herbivores?!”

“Yes! They’re my friends!” Legoshi insists.

“SHUT UP,” Gouhin roars suddenly, quickly commanding silence from both other carnivores. “One thing you need to realise real soon, kid, is that you do not actually like these herbivores, that’s just your brain confusing your hunting instincts for having feelings for them. You clearly have some kind of relationship with my nephew, so species isn’t a barrier for you, and I have half a mind to forbid him from being around you, although he’d never listen to me. But when it comes to herbivores that you dream of eating , and especially the herbivore who you almost ate, it’s what Savon said. You bite them and then circle back around when they’re weak to finish them off. For their sake, and yours, stay away.”

Legoshi stays silent after that, Gouhin’s words revolving around and around in his brain. Eventually, the panda picks up the polaroid photos that have fallen onto the floor, and opens the door to leave. “Talk some sense into him, Savon, then bring him out,” he growls over his shoulder.

Once the door shuts again, the two are left in silence.

“You ever heard of sea-glass, kid?” Savon asks after sitting back down on the floor with his legs crossed, and Legoshi looks up at him with a confused expression.

“No?” He replies.

“When a bottle or something gets into the ocean and smashed up, eventually the pieces get washed around with all the grit and sand, and all the imperfections get smoothed out. They wind up all polished by the waves, that’s what sea-glass is,” the komodo explains. “Life is like the ocean for us dragons, and our scales are like glass. All the shit the world throws at us, every fight, every piece of bad luck, it’s all just waves that we can use to polish our scales. But you can’t just sit back and let it hit you, because then you’ll just get smashed into even smaller pieces. You gotta ride that wave, make it work for you. You get me?”

Legoshi nods slightly. “I think so,” he says. “But I’m not really a komodo dragon,” he adds uncomfortably.

“You’ve got our scales, our blood, you’ve got the dragon’s breath,” Savon lists. “That’s the old term for our venom, by the way. You’re dragon enough for me.”

“This feels like such a big wave,” Legoshi says mournfully.

“Well you’ll never get through it if you keep sitting around feeling sorry for yourself,” Savon growls sharply. “And you need to take better care of your scales,” he adds. “Your actual scales on your body, I mean, not a metaphor.”

Legoshi looks at the scales in the palms of his hands and over his shoulder. “They’re reminders of all my mistakes,” he says dully.

“And you’re just gonna hide from them like a coward?” Savon asks derisively. “Wear them with pride, kid. Anything less is an insult to your grandpa, me, and to every other dragon.” Savon gets off the ground and holds a hand out for Legoshi to take. “Come on, time to face the waves.”

~~ Riz ~~

Honey; sweet, golden, honey. Made by the effort of billions of insects, hundreds of millions of flowers, all bottled up to be used by bears like Riz to manage the side effects of medication they’re forced to take by the government because they got too big. 

‘What a fucking joke,’ Riz thinks to himself as he sits on the ground with one hand over his eyes. He takes another swig of honey from the bottle that Aoba located, and grimaces at the taste. It’s been so long since he needed honey to deal with his symptoms that now, even though it brings him relief from the migraine, the sweetness is almost sickening.

“Hey, Riz,” Gouhin’s voice comes through the slowly lifting fog, and Riz peeks out between his fingers at the panda. His usual scowl has become tender in the face of Riz’s distress, but only just. “Come on, we need to talk about some things.”

Riz nods, and takes Gouhin’s hand to help himself up. He lets himself be led into the room he uses as a bedroom when he stays here, the lights intentionally kept off, and sits down on the bed while Gouhin takes a chair. They stay there in silence for a while before Riz’s uncle finally shifts in his chair.

“You know I’ll always support you, it’s my job as your guardian when you’re in the city,” Gouhin says. “And I’m happy that you’ve made some more friends, and even gotten a boyfriend.”

“But?” Riz asks.

“But, well, him?” Gouhin asks in a voice that immediately gets Riz’s hackles up. “A teenage Devouring offender that ate a carnivore? Please tell me that you weren’t involved in that somehow.”

“What if I was? It’s not like you’re going to turn me in to the cops,” Riz says defiantly. He knows he’s being unnecessarily thick-headed, but he can’t help but push back on the uncle that seems to think he knows everything.

“Riz, I’m being serious here,” Gouhin says in a hard tone of voice that tells Riz that, this time, he isn’t to be messed around with. “Did you or did you not take part in a Devouring?”

“No,” Riz says sullenly. “I helped him bury the body, but I didn’t eat any or help kill it.”

“You see, that’s still getting involved!” Gouhin exclaims. “I know you were probably trying to do the right thing at the time, but you should have brought him here! Or called me! What good am I if you don’t ask for my help?”

“What good are you even when I do?!” Riz snaps, raising his voice. “I asked you to come to see the play I was working on, and you didn’t even show up! You didn’t even call, you just texted ,” Riz spits the last word. “Why did you even become my guardian if you don’t bother to do the things an uncle should do?”

Gouhin stays silent after the outburst, and the longer the silence drags out, the less of Riz’s fiery conviction remains. Still, he can’t unsay the words, but maybe he can try apologise.

“Sorry,” he says.

“No, you’re right, I’ve done a shit job of being your uncle,” Gouhin admits, surprising Riz. “I just get so worried that you’ll get hurt if you get sucked into my world, but that’s no excuse for neglecting you. I’m sorry, Riz.”

Riz opens and closes his mouth a few times, before nodding and shuffling over on the large mattress. He pats the space beside him, inviting his uncle to sit down. Somewhat awkwardly, Gouhin gets up from the chair and sits down, the bed creaking with their combined weights.

“I’m not good with this feelings shit, I never have been,” Gouhin says, prompting a short chuckle from Riz. “Ironic, I know, a therapist who sucks at talking it out.”

“That’s alright, you are a pretty weird kind of therapist,” Riz says, and a small smile appears on the corner of Gouhin’s lips. “I know you’re trying to help me and keep me safe, but I’m almost eighteen, and I’m going to start making my own decisions.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Gouhin looks at his hands in his lap for a few seconds. “What do you see in this guy?” He finally asks.

Riz’s eyebrows raise in surprise, but he thinks seriously about the question. “Well, he’s quiet in a way that’s comfortable to be around, you know? We can talk or just hang out around each other and we’re both happy with that. Except when he’s talking about bugs, he loves bugs,” Riz says with a smile, thinking of all the happy little movements that Legoshi makes when he’s getting excited about something. “He listens to me when I’m having a bad time, or when my side-effects are bad, and when I’m with him, I don’t get as many migraines. He’s awkward in a dorky kind of way, and he stands up for what he thinks is right.”

Gouhin nods slowly as Riz lists things off. “And is he, you know, uh,” he says hesitantly. “Attractive? To you, I mean?”

“Gouhin, seriously?” Riz asks, a flush of embarrassment coming to his cheeks.

“I don’t know! I’m not into guys, so how would I know?!” The panda replies. “I want to know if he’s good for you!”

“Yes, he’s hot and sexy and his body turns me on,” Riz says bluntly. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“You know, not really, but I guess I did ask for it,” Gouhin grumbles. “And are you practising safe sex?” He continues. “I know that it can be hard to find the right sized condoms for larger animals, but that doesn’t mean that you should skimp!”

“Oh Rex, YES Gouhin, we are!” Riz says, cheeks bright red under his fur at this point.

“Even when doing oral? If either of you have other partners, you should both get regular STI checkups.”

“Yes–” Riz begins, but hesitates, thinking about their rooftop escapade with Jack. “Well, not when doing oral, actually,” he adds guiltily.

“Ha! I knew there’d be something,” Gouhin says triumphantly. “See? I can still do the parenting thing.”

“Alright, that’s enough!” Riz says, getting up from the bed.

Gouhin stands up as well, but before he leaves, he puts a hand on Riz’s shoulder. “Riz, even if I haven’t been the best at being there since you came to this city, I’m proud of you for growing into the man you are today,” he says, the uncharacteristic tenderness filling Riz’s heart with warmth. “Now, I need to finish things up with Legoshi, and show him the board. You want to be around for that?”

The moment of warmth fades slightly, but Riz nods firmly nonetheless. “I owe it to him.”

“Good cub.”

As they leave the room, Riz winces slightly at the light, but his chest fills with elation as he sees Legoshi walking up the corridor beside Savon. The hybrid’s tail immediately begins wagging strongly from side to side, and Riz practically runs the last few steps to pull him into a tight embrace. Before he can kiss him, however, Savon puts a hand in between their faces.

“Whoa there, venom alert,” he reminds them.

“We really need to get you a prescription for more tablets,” Riz says, and Legoshi nods. “I’m just so happy you’re safe,” he adds, and a tightness he didn’t realise was in his chest begins to dissipate. “You have to stop running off like that, maybe I need to put a leash on you.”

Legoshi goes red all of a sudden, and Savon coughs heavily.

“That’s not what I meant!” Riz protests.

“I know,” Legoshi says. “I’m sorry, it just became so…much.”

Riz watches as his boyfriend makes eye-contact with Savon, and the komodo dragon nods slightly.

“But I’m going to try and do better. I need to stop running away from everything, I need to ride the wave,” Legoshi continues like it’s something he’s been told, and Riz throws a questioning glance Savon’s way, who returns it with his own impassive visage.

“Thank you, that’s all I want from you,” Riz says, and interlaces his fingers with Legoshi’s. “My uncle needs to show you something before you go, it’s something all his patients see.”

Legoshi nods, and lets himself be led into the lounge area.

“Come closer,” Gouhin says as he makes his way to a switch on the wall beside the storage closet. “You kids, too, all carnivores should see this,” he adds, kicking Bill’s feet off of his coffee table and ignoring the tiger’s complaint. Riz’s grip on Legoshi’s hand tightens as he prepares for the sight to come. Gouhin flicks the switch, and a door slides back to reveal what looks at first like another large storage closet, although this one is empty. Instead, the walls are plastered with photos, all of which Riz has seen before.

Each one shows a carnivore, or part of one, and each one is gruesome. There’s a jackal that looks mournfully at what is left of the arm he chewed off just below the shoulder, an alligator lunging at the camera with a crazed look in his eye, head restrained by multiple sets of chains. There are animals that have lost all their fur from stress, every form of self-harm one can imagine, and carnivores whose bodies are physically fine, yet all the light has left their eyes, like they’ve given up on life.

Gouhin motions for the others to come in, although Savon waits outside and leans against the wall. Even Bill is silent as they peruse the grisly photos. Legoshi’s hand holds Riz’s tighter as he picks up a few with his other, long claws skating over them with the lightest of touches.

“Every carnivore on this wall committed a Devouring at some point in their lives, each one losing control and becoming slaves to their feral selves. One leopard even thought she loved a herbivore so much that she devoured him alive,” Gouhin says in the quiet space. “Not all of them could be rehabilitated, but the rest made it. This isn’t a wall of shame, ya’ hear me? It’s a wall of reality. This is why the Black Market exists.”

Riz watches his uncle stick Legoshi’s photo up on the wall, just one more in a sea of faces.

“All of you are still young, but this world has problems that you can’t ignore, or you’ll end up becoming one of them,” Gouhin continues over his shoulder. “Every photo I add to this wall reminds me why I do this work, so I can try and prevent as many photos being added as possible.”

Eventually, the group leaves the room, but Gouhin keeps Riz and Legoshi back from the rest of the teenagers before they can walk to the lift. The panda dips into the storage closet and comes back with a two glossy magazines and two boxes. To Riz’s abject horror, his uncle hands each of them a box, which turns out to be large breed carnivore-sized condoms, and the magazines to Legoshi specifically. One of them features a rabbit on the cover, and the other features an alpaca. Both of them are pornographic, the alpaca especially so.

“If you get stimulated by these, you could be just a teenager with ‘expansive’ sexual preferences,” Gouhin says seriously, powering on through the blanched expressions of the two younger carnivores. “If you don’t, however, and you’re still drawn to these herbivores, then that’s a problem we need to work out in therapy, which you are coming in every two weeks to get, by the way.” The panda’s voice takes on a tone that all but says aloud the words ‘I know where you live and I can get your large boyfriend to bring you in if necessary’. “Check yourself with it, and don’t give it back,” Gouhin continues. “I’m officially taking you on as my patient. Whether or not I’m your enemy is your choice, but know this, there’s no way I’ll give my blessing to you two if you don’t go to therapy with me, or another psychologist I approve of, if one ever shows up around these parts.”

Riz opens his mouth to protest, but closes it when he sees his uncle’s expression.

“If you weren’t my nephew, I’d recommend you check yourself too, since you also seem to have some kind of attraction to this alpaca that Legoshi told me about,” Gouhin says, and Riz doesn’t reply for fear of any other incredibly embarrassing conversations starting.

They stow the shameful items in Legoshi’s backpack before following the others, Bill picking up the food containers from the fridge on their way out. Before Savon rides away on his bike, however, he beckons Riz and Legoshi over. 

“Here’s a burner you can contact me on, kid,” he says, handing over an old flip-phone to Legoshi. “If you ever want to learn a bit more about your family history, hit me up and we’ll get a meal together. You’re welcome with the Dokugumi any time. You’re family.”

“Thanks,” Legoshi mumbles as he puts in the number.

“Oh, and don’t go wasting your venom,” Savon adds. “It’s sacred to us dragons, and it’s a show of pride that you can deal with problems without its power.”

“Noted.”

Savon then takes a long look at Riz with that stony expression once more before his eyes crinkle with a smile behind the mask. “You’re in for a wild ride, cub,” he says with a chuckle. “This fuckin’ family, I swear to Rex.”

Riz coughs in the smog left behind by Savon’s motorcycle, and it isn’t much longer before Bill comes over and hits Legoshi on the back with his usual enthusiasm.

“You just got scouted by a gumi leader, bro!” He exclaims.

“He’s my uncle,” Legoshi replies with a shrug. “Or granduncle, I guess.”

“Whatever, still pretty cool to know you’ve got that going for you,” Bill says.

As they get closer to Tao and Aoba, they stop once again, and the mood takes a more somber turn. Worldlessly, Aoba steps forward and wraps his arms around Legoshi in a hug that surprises Bill as much as it surprises the hybrid.

“Don’t get mad at him, but Riz told us what happened,” Aoba says. “After seeing that wall, I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you. We’ve got your back, you just have to actually talk to us, okay?”

Legoshi returns the hug hesitantly, but nods. “I will,” he says.

Bill piles in on the hug, prompting an ‘oof’ from Aoba, soon followed by a slightly less enthusiastic Tao. Finally, Riz wraps his large arms around the whole group, and Legoshi’s tail begins to wag once again. Someone across the street yells something unintelligible at the group, and Riz can feel Bill tensing his body.

“Only reason I’m not beating the shit out of that guy is because Riz is holding us all together, just so you guys know,” Bill growls.

“We know, Bill, you’ve got big strong muscles,” Tao teases, and they all laugh, even Bill.

“We should get back to school,” Legoshi says.

“Yeah, let’s,” Riz agrees, and the group hug breaks apart. The migraine is still lingering at the back of his perception, but as they all walk away, he can almost believe it’s gone away completely.

Chapter Text

~~ Tem ~~

“And then he got suspended, and his dad got SO mad!” Tem laughs as he digs a small hole in the soil with a trowel. “It sucks you couldn’t be there to see it, Lego, but I guess you were still in detention, right?”

“It was understandable,” Legoshi replies from his right. “From everyone else’s perspective, a carnivore student just attacked a herbivore.”

“Booo,” Tem jeers, making a face. “That dickhead broke my fingers, you shouldn’t have been punished, even just for a little bit. I don’t care what everyone thinks they saw, you were protecting me and Haru.”

“That’s… Thanks,” Legoshi replies after a moment.

Tem smiles without looking up, setting aside his trowel and reaching for a small rose plant that’s been already taken out of its pot for transplanting. He, Legoshi, and Riz are all enjoying the peace of the gardening club, especially since all three of them have found the cafeteria to be a hostile environment since the incident a few days ago. Herbivores don’t like Legoshi for beating one up, they don’t like Tem for defending Legoshi, and carnivores don’t like Legoshi or Riz for associating so closely with Tem and Haru.

“Is this alright?” Riz asks from Tem’s left, and the alpaca looks up to see him holding another rose plant, roots curled around around in a spiral pattern. 

“It’s still too rootbound,” Tem says, shaking his head and leaning over. 

“Rootbound?” Riz asks, looking at the bottom of the plant.

“It’s been in a small pot for too long, and the roots haven’t had anywhere to go but in on themselves,” Tem explains, reaching over with his good hand and gently pushing his fingers into the mass of plant and soil. “It can’t get enough nutrients like that, even if you put it into a larger space, so you need to pull the roots away from each other,” he continues, and demonstrates with a tug, sending spent dirt at the centre of the roots cascading onto the garden bed they’re working at.

“Doesn’t that damage the plant?” Riz asks with a worried tone as Tem continues pulling at the tangle.

“Mhm, a little, but that’s inevitable,” he says. “But now, it can spread its roots further and grow big and healthy!” Tem takes the plant from Riz’s hands and gives it to Legoshi, nodding to the small hole the hybrid has just finished digging. He watches as the large carnivore takes the rose as gently as possible and lowers it almost reverentially into its space before gathering soil around it and patting it down.

“Like sea-glass,” Legoshi murmurs, almost to himself.

“What?” Tem asks.

“Oh, nothing, something my uncle told me,” the hybrid says.

‘I think that’s the first time I’ve heard him talk about his family,’ Tem thinks. As much as he wants to push for more, however, he stops himself. ‘There’s probably a good reason for that.’ 

Instead, they return to planting roses. After that, Tem gets the large carnivores to get some sacks of potting mix from the top shelf inside the storeroom while he gets a sack of pearlite and a big tub to mix them with. With a little direction from Tem, Legoshi and Riz combine them with the right proportions and fill some pots up with the mixture. Then, they plant succulents. 

The trio work in the same sort of comfortable silence that Tem has come to expect from them, only interrupted by the occasional question or direction. As the sun warms his wool, Tem sits back and watches the way that Legoshi and Riz interact. They keep finding small excuses to brush up against each other, or to catch each others’ eyes, or pick things up for one another. As he does, a smile tugs at his lips, and a strange feeling steals over him.

‘Why does my chest feel so… Weird? How do I even describe this?’ Tem thinks. Memories of the first time two times he came up here resurface in his mind, and his smile fades. ‘The first time I ran up here, I was going to throw myself off this roof. It had been so long since I’d felt that way, but the urge was so strong. Then, when I came here with Riz and Legoshi, I was prepared to be devoured by them. Is that how Duncan felt just before he was devoured? Who did he meet that night?’

The indescribable feeling drains away to be replaced with a stomach-churning disgust. He watches Riz carefully brush away some potting mix from the fur on Legoshi’s muzzle that got there during some over-enthusiastic stirring. The sunlight glints off of a claw as it runs through fur and over scales. ‘I can’t believe I practically offered myself up as a meal to them. Because why? Because I still wanted to die, but couldn’t do it myself? So I tried to activate their predatory instincts? What a horrible thing to do.’

“Tem, are you alright?” Riz asks, looking over at the alpaca and his darkening expression.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I’m okay!” He replies, putting on what he hopes is a convincing smile.

Legoshi looks hard at Tem’s grimace, and his forked tongue tastes the air. “You don’t smell okay,” he says.

“What, you can smell people’s emotions now?” Tem asks, trying to deflect with a teasing tone of voice. “Didn’t realise that was something komodo dragons could do.”

“I can’t, but you smell different when you’re anxious,” Legoshi states in his usual blunt manner. The hybrid puts down the pot he was holding and walks closer before bending down to be on eye-height with Tem. “You kind of smell anxious.”

‘You bend double to be polite because I’m a smaller animal, but you still point out things like how I smell. You really don’t know any social rules you haven’t been explicitly told, do you?’ Tem thinks as he stares into Legoshi’s pinprick eyes. It would be endearing if it wasn’t directed at himself.

Before he is forced to reply, the sound of the door to the stairs opening rings out through the relative quiet of the garden, and both carnivores’ attentions swivel in that direction. The sound is followed by the crunch of footsteps on the gravel path, and the proud antlers of Louis are visible over a rose bush, heralding the buck’s arrival. When he rounds the corner and sees the tableau, he freezes, shock evident on his face.

No one speaks, each waiting for someone else to break the tension.

“What are you doing, Legoshi?” Louis asks sharply, his shock being quickly covered up by an opportunity to question the carnivore.

“I’m asking if Tem is okay,” Legoshi replies evenly. “What are you doing here, Louis?”

“I was– I have business with the club leader,” Louis says, hesitating only a fraction. “But clearly she isn’t here,” he adds, and turns tail before striding back. Tem winces at the sound of the door to the stairwell slamming shut.

“Ugh, I can’t stand him,” Tem says loudly. “He’s always so up himself, thinks he’s the golden boy, and then he goes and sleeps with Haru like she’s some dirty secret.”

“He’s fucking Haru?” Riz asks incredulously, prompting Tem to look up in alarm.

“I shouldn’t have said that!” He says hurriedly. “Don’t tell anyone, please!”

“We won’t, don’t worry,” Riz replies. “It’s their secret, none of my business.”

Tem relaxes gratefully. “Phew. Anyway, yeah, he’s a douchebag. Sometimes it seems like he just loves to lord over everyone, I mean it’s like he thinks he’s already the CEO of his dad’s business.”

“I don’t know,” Legoshi says thoughtfully. “When those students from the journalism club found us after Adler, he had this look.”

Tem looks over at the hybrid, brows furrowed. “This look?” he asks.

Legoshi nods, still looking down the path Louis went. “He looked scared, like he wasn’t in control and didn’t know what to do,” he says, and turns his gaze back on Tem. “I think it was the first time I’ve ever seen him look like a regular teenager.”

~~ Legoshi ~~

‘Am I a regular teenager?’ Legoshi thinks to himself as he sits alone in the Drama club room, having arrived too early for anyone else to be around. ‘Thinking back, I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience that most people would consider normal for an animal my age. My childhood was spent finding corners in the back of restaurants out of sight so grandpa wouldn’t get harassed, I haven’t been back home since coming the Cherryton, and then… well, that happened.’ The hybrid grimaces as he thinks about that night he stood guard, and everything that’s happened since. ‘Everyone seems to want a ‘normal’ highschool experience, but if I was normal, then I don’t think I would have been in the Drama club, and I wouldn’t have met Riz, or Tem.’

Legoshi sighs and wipes a cloth over the light fixture he was cleaning to pass the time before club starts. The light reflects off of a few small scales on the backs of his hands, although they still lack the lustre that his grandpa’s, or even Savon’s, scales have. He can’t remember getting injuries that were the precursor to those scales, but they must have happened while he had succumbed to his instincts in the Black Market. According to Gouhin, he had been growling and feral. As Legoshi turns, his reflection in the mirror the dance team uses catches his eye.

‘Have I gotten even taller?’ He thinks to himself in disbelief before flopping back down onto the mat. ‘I wish I’d stop growing. At this rate, I’ll get taller than Riz, even taller than grandpa, and then what will I do? I’ll never be anything more than a huge, scary carnivore. Ever since going to the Black Market, it feels inevitable that I’ll grow apart from my herbivore friends, and especially Tem.’

The image of Gouhin’s serious expression as he warned Legoshi away from Haru and Tem floats through his mind, and Legoshi groans.

‘I know what he said, but I can’t help it. I want to get closer to Tem, and part of me wants to even if he doesn’t. What a carnivore way of thinking.’ The hybrid raises his hands to the ceiling and looks at them glumly. ‘My claws are growing long again. What use are they except for hurting others.’

Without understanding when they arrived, Legoshi realises that his hands have been joined by another pair, although these ones lack the scales and curved claws that his have.

“Is this some kind of Drama warmup?” Juno’s voice emanates into the practice space, prompting Legoshi to roll away quickly in surprise.

“AH!” He yelps. “Sorry, you startled me,” he adds quickly. “I was lost in my thoughts and didn’t hear you come in.

“That’s okay! I’m just glad to see a friendly face also got here early,” Juno replies with a smile.

‘She was being bullied pretty badly last time we saw each other. I wonder if she came here early for the same reason I do, so I can get ready without anyone else in the changing room,’ Legoshi thinks, mind wandering back to when they first met in the hallway. “How are you doing? Is Drama club going well for you?” He asks, desperately trying to remember the small-talk training that Jack gave him a year ago when he entered senior high.

“It’s actually quite hard lately,” Juno admits, her smile falling slightly. “I think the other female members have been trying to tease me, maybe they’re scared of me because I’m a wolf. I got given a role as a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the dance performance and they said that I’d be good at it without any other explanation. I was probably given it because I’m a carnivore and there’s been a lot of news about Devourings lately, but I’m going to practice and dance beautifully, that’s why I’m early.”

“Being a T-Rex doesn’t sound so bad,” Legoshi says. “That’s the dinosaur the stage crew are making a model of. You’ll be the most important role in the dance. Dinosaurs are cool, although I’d be a horseshoe crab if I could choose.”

“Oh, that’s a… nice way of looking at it,” Juno says hesitantly, the smile she built back up while talking faltering yet again.

‘She stopped smiling. What did I do?’ Legoshi thinks. ‘I was trying to be encouraging, how do I fix this?’

“Uh, I’ve seen the dance a few times, I could see if I can help you run through it?” He offers as a last resort. To his surprise, Juno’s expression blooms back up into enthusiasm almost immediately, and her tail starts to wag.

“I would love that!” She says excitedly. 

Juno quickly begins to move through the dance while Legoshi claps the beat, but begins to falter much sooner than Legoshi would have expected.

“I can never get this bit right,” she whines pitifully.

“Well, I’ve never danced,” Legoshi begins, and takes off the shirt of the tracksuit he has taken to wearing to not get too cold. “But I could try show you?” He raises his arms into the correct position to demonstrate, even though he feels a little silly while doing so.

“That’s so good!” Juno exclaims encouragingly. “But I’m still having trouble, could you help?”

Legoshi shrugs. “Alright,” he agrees, and moves behind the wolf. ‘It’s so much easier when other animals are alright with physical touch,’ he thinks to himself as he positions Juno’s arms correctly and begins stepping with her in silence. ‘Maybe it’s because we’re both at least part wolf, but I’m glad I could help her feel more comfortable.’

Suddenly, Juno stops dancing and turns around, taking Legoshi’s hands in hers and surprising him once again. “Legoshi, do you feel that too?” She asks, looking into his eyes with a gaze that pins him to the spot like a needle through a bug. “I feel like my heart is about to pound out of my chest, I’ve never felt this before,” Juno adds, voice becoming breathy.

Understanding finally dawns on Legoshi. “I do know what you mean,” he says. “You’ll learn about it in biology class next year!” He continues, tail beginning to wag as he begins his verbal run up into a familiar topic. “When two animals of the same species have physical contact, it’s been shown to release hormones that help regulate stress! We’re actually only partially the same species, since I’m a hybrid, but if you get stressed in club, you can hold my tail.”

Somehow, this isn’t the explanation that Juno was looking for, and her face blanches into confusion just as the club room door opens and Riz walks in.

“What are you doing, Juno?” Riz asks, an uncharacteristic growl coming from deep within his chest. As the bear walks over, Legoshi feels Juno’s hands clasp tighter on his.

“Legoshi was showing me how to go through the dance,” the wolf snaps. As soon as she does, however, something stirs in Legoshi’s mind. Initially, he was surprised by Riz’s hostile tone of voice, and was even going to object. However, when Juno replies with such an acidic tone of voice, the protest dies in his throat.

‘It’s like they’re being territorial over me,’ he thinks, and with that thought, he sees the fur raising on Juno’s hackles, and the way that her hands grip his own, rather than hold them. Suddenly, all of Legoshi’s sympathy drains away, and he pulls his hands out from Juno’s clutches. As he does, Juno looks at him with confusion, and a glint of anger in her eyes.

“You were trying to hit on me, weren’t you?” Legoshi asks, stepping back to Riz’s side. The discomfort from before spreads to his whole body, making his skin shiver. “You already knew that I’m Riz’s boyfriend, and you still tried to get me to be with you.” The words are an accusation now.

Juno looks between the two larger carnivores, and Legoshi can see her weighing up different options in her head before deciding on huffing dismissively and holding her nose in the air, feigning being offended. “Ugh, as if I would get with a gay guy,” she says derisively, and turns on her heel before walking towards the changing rooms. 

“Are you alright, pup?” Riz asks quietly, bringing one arm around Legoshi’s waist as they watch the wolf storm away.

“I don’t know,” Legoshi admits. “That was the first time a female wolf has really paid attention to me. I was trying to help since she seemed to be getting bullied, but maybe I said the wrong thing?”

“Some animals get the wrong idea when you try to be nice, especially if you touch them,” Riz says with a shrug.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Legoshi mutters, and leans into his boyfriend’s side. “I wish I could kiss you, but I’ve run out of my tablets,” he adds with a sigh.

The hand on Legoshi’s waist pulls him tighter, and he feels his chest tighten slightly with the words he knows are coming.

“Maybe you should get a proper prescription?” Riz suggests gently. “I do like kissing you.”

Legoshi sighs, and the tightness becomes a small lump in his throat. “Maybe. It’s just,” he mumbles. “It’s scary.”

“I’ll come with you,” Riz says. “If you want me to.”

The hybrid thinks of all the problems his grandfather has faced from being classified as a venomous animal: all the restaurants that have discriminated against him, completely legally, and the potential problems when it comes to healthcare. Staying under the radar as long as possible is a tempting proposition, but faced with the prospect of not being able to kiss Riz, or Jack, or anyone else for that matter, whenever he wants to, the temporary benefits fall away.

“Let’s go after Drama club,” he says, straightening his back with a little more conviction than he really feels.

“That soon?” Riz asks, surprise evident in his voice.

“Yes,” Legoshi affirms. ‘I want to do this for myself, but also for my loved ones. I want to be able to stand on my two feet and not hide anymore,’ he thinks. “Also, if it’s the evening, I’ll probably see Nurse Barclay again,” he adds aloud.

“Alright,” Riz says, and pulls Legoshi into a full body hug, deeper and stronger than they’ve shared ever since Aoba first asked them about the Black Market.

“I love you,” Legoshi says.

~~ Riz ~~

‘It feels like every time we come down here, it’s for something life-changing,’ Riz thinks to himself as he and Legoshi near the infirmary that evening after Drama club finishes. He holds Legoshi’s hand as tightly and as gently as the hybrid grips his own, reciprocating the alternating need for pressure and tenderness. Most animals that they pass on their way to the infirmary give them strange or even outright hostile looks, either at their hand holding, or at Legoshi in particular. ‘It’s gotten so much worse. I guess I just have to be extra supportive, and maybe embrace being a scary carnivore every now and then, even if it’s a herbivore I’m being scary towards.’

When they turn the corner to the small waiting area outside the infirmary, the golden furred figure of Jack comes into view sitting on one of the chairs. When he sees the two larger carnivores, he jumps to his feet and hurries over, tail wagging a few times. Riz can see the complex mix of emotions plain on the labrador’s face, but it’s also clear that he’s trying to put on a supportive affect.

“I got your messages and ditched the student council,” Jack says as he gets near. After a moment, he puts his arms around Legoshi in a tight hug. “I’m here for you, Lego!” He says, slightly muffled. “I know how hard this must be.”

Riz smiles as Legoshi lets go of his hand in order to reciprocate the hug. The fact that his boyfriend has someone as loving and enthusiastic as Jack to support him makes Riz feel happy in a way he can’t describe. Moving on automatic, Riz steps behind Legoshi and wraps his arms around the two canids, nuzzling his head into Legoshi’s neck.

“I needed that,” the hybrid mumbles. “I’m ready.”

They break the hug, all somewhat reluctantly, and walk towards the infirmary doors. When they enter, Riz notices Legoshi’s tail begin to wag as the familiar figure of Nurse Barclay looks up from a computer at the trio.

“Ah! Legoshi, I was wondering when I’d see you again,” the highland cow gestures in the direction of the large breed animal beds and follows them as they make their ways to the now familiar area of the infirmary. “I can see that you three have worked out your issues,” she adds with a smile, nodding to the way that they all hold each others’ hands, only breaking the contact in order for Legoshi to sit on the bed.

“Oh, yeah,” Legoshi mumbles, a touch of pink coming to his cheeks.

“We’re boyfriends,” Riz says with a defensive tone.

“Good for you,” Nurse Barclay replies evenly. “No need to take that tone with me by the way, I’ve seen every combination you can think of, and I’ll never judge what happy animals do with each other.”

Riz’s mouth snaps shut and his fur relaxes at the authoritative tone. Pink tinges his cheeks this time as Jack stifles a giggle and the nurse turns back to Legoshi.

“I assume it’s you that has something you want me to look at?” She asks. “I heard about your fight with that tiger lad on stage, I expected to see you soon afterwards.”

Legoshi opens his mouth like he’s going to object, but instead settles back, embarrassed. “We didn’t want it to get out that the fight was real,” the hybrid says. “Bill and I have worked things out between us, but I haven’t gotten into any more fights since then.”

‘That’s a lie,’ Riz thinks to himself.

Nurse Barclay looks at Legoshi for a long moment before turning back to a computer terminal set up beside the bed and looking up the hybrid’s school records. From where he’s standing, Riz can see the recent encounter in the cafeteria listed under disciplinary incidents, but for some reason, the herbivore doesn’t comment. “So what have you come in for today, if it isn’t about the fight injuries?” She asks instead.

Riz puts his hand on Legoshi’s shoulders for support as the hybrid takes a deep breath.

“I want a prescription for the anti-venom tablets,” Legoshi says with a slight waver in his voice, clearly trying to put on a brave face.

“That’s a big step from what you told me last time you were here,” Nurse Barclay says, eyebrows raising slightly. “Of course, I’m happy to sort that out and give you a packet in the mean time, but may I ask what’s changed?”

Legoshi looks at both Riz and Jack, and Riz smiles encouragingly at him. “I talked to my uncle recently, and it made me realise that I want to stop trying to hide from my problems,” he says. “If I get discriminated against because of being a venomous animal, then I’ll meet that head on.”

Riz looks at the nurse, and sees the unmistakable glint of happiness in her eyes, despite the professional face she presents to the trio. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say she has some personal investment in this,’ Riz thinks to himself. ‘I wonder if she has venomous friends.’

“That’s good to hear,” the highland cow says. “I’ll go and get the tablets now, and then I’d like to do a general checkup before ye go if that’s okay.”

As she bustles off, Riz turns to Legoshi and smiles before engulfing him in a tight hug, quickly followed by Jack doing the same thing from the hybrid’s other side. “Well done, pup,” he says softly.

“I can’t wait to kiss both of you as much as I want to,” Legoshi replies from the middle of the hugs.

“And we can’t wait to kiss you!” Jack says excitedly, tail wagging furiously.

“Maybe we could do that after we leave here?” Legoshi asks cautiously. “And, more, if you both want to,” he adds. “I’ve been, um…”

Curiosity piques in Riz at the words, and his mind begins to run through what Legoshi could possibly be talking about. By the way that Jack’s tail has frozen, it’s clear the smaller carnivore is also thinking about it. “You’ve been?” Riz prompts.

“I’ve been… practising,” Legoshi says, embarrassment choking his words.

Riz gulps with excitement, and he can feel movement shifting below his waistline. His palms itch with the urge to press their musk into Legoshi’s fur, but he managed to restrain himself. Riz looks up to see Jack’s tail in a blur as it wags behind him.

“Do you mean like how I said I was practising?” Jack asks, a notable heavy tone in his voice.

Before Legoshi can answer, however, Nurse Barclay walks back around the curtain holding a paper bag, and all three carnivores break the embrace and look in any direction other than each other or at the highland cow. Whether or not she notices their expressions, Nurse Barclay takes Legoshi’s blood pressure, listens to his breathing, and measures his height before handing him the bag.

“Ah! Dinnae go yet!” The herbivore says as the trio begin to move. “I always like to talk about this, and it’s rare that I have multiple partners of someone in front of me to talk to, so this is perfect timing.”

Something in the way the highland cow speaks makes Riz hesitate to look directly at her, but her authoritative tone pins him and the two canids to the spot. ‘That’s the kind of tone that Gouhin uses when… oh no.’

“I’m going to be blunt,” Nurse Barclay begins. “Are you all three sexually active?”

Legoshi immediately begins to choke as he inhales a tablet he had fished out of of the bag and started to chew, almost at the same time as Jack makes a small gasping sound. Riz gives Legoshi one hard slap on the back, and the choking becomes coughing, which turns into a loud swallowing noise.

“Well, no need to be like that,” the nurse continues, slightly bemused. “It’s a standard question.”

“Yes,” Riz says, making the correct assessment that he is the most capable of speech at the moment.

“And only with each other, or do you have relations with any other animals?” The highland cow asks.

Riz looks at the other two carnivores questioningly. “As far as I know, only with each other, but that might change?” He says, both a statement and a question in one.

“Just each other,” Legoshi says, still trying to catch his breath.

Nurse Barclay nods attentively and pulls open a drawer beside the computer monitor. From the drawer, she produces two boxes of condoms, each different sizes, and a bottle of lube, which she gives to Riz as the most responsible looking animal there. “This lubricant is specially designed for anal use, assuming that is what you are doing,” she says tone all bright and professional in opposition to the look of cold horror passing over Legoshi and Jack’s faces. “And if you have any sexual intercourse with animals whose sexual health history you don’t know, you must always use some form of barrier protection. If you do start having regular intercourse with other animals, you should get a sexual health screening checkup each month or so. Do you all understand?”

All three carnivores nod silently. It’s not that Riz isn’t feeling the same slew of embarrassment that his boyfriends are, it’s just that he is better at hiding it. “Thanks,” he manages before standing up. “Can we go now?”

“Of course!” The highland stands up from her seat and claps her hands together once before pulling back the curtain. “Come back any time you need something! And Legoshi, you should start taking better care of those scales of yours! It’s good to see you’re starting to let them breath, but a young man like you should have a shine on them!”

“Thanks Mrs. Bar– Nurse Barclay,” Legoshi replies over his shoulder, stumbling over his words in his hurry to leave the infirmary, quickly followed by the other two carnivores.

When the doors shut behind, Riz, Legoshi, and Jack all stand in slightly shocked silence, apart from the occasional crunch as Legoshi chews the last of his tablet. After a few moments, Jack’s shoulders start to shake. With a look of concern, Riz bends down and puts his hand on the labrador’s shoulders.

“Are you okay?” He asks gently.

“Yes!” Jack says, and Riz realises that the smaller carnivore is laughing. “It’s just that, we just were talking about having sex, and she gives us condoms and lube!” He giggles, bringing smiles to both Riz and Legoshi’s faces. “Do you think she can read minds?” Jack adds, wiping away a tear.

“I don’t know, I think she just talks to a lot of horny teenagers,” Riz says with a grin. “Besides, I don’t think we were being very subtle.”

“I feel like I can’t figure out how to be subtle,” Legoshi says. “I’m either completely open, or I’m misunderstood.”

“I don’t think that I can misunderstand what you said earlier,” Riz rumbles, pulling Legoshi closer and stealing a kiss from the hybrid. It tastes strongly of mint and Legoshi’s saliva.

“Hey! Leave some for me!” Jack says hotly. “Just because I can’t reach, doesn’t mean I get left out.”

With a sudden surge of confidence, Riz reaches down and picks Jack up bodily with one arm, pulling him into a deep kiss as well. The labrador’s yelp of surprise is muffled by Riz’s mouth, and quickly turns into a whimper.

“You taste like honey,” Riz says with surprise.

“I had a headache,” Jack mumbles, still in shock. “I thought it might help.”

Before Riz can reply, he feels Legoshi snake one hand around his waist and down onto his rear. “Let’s find somewhere private,” the hybrid says in a low growl.

Chapter Text

~~ Jack ~~

“Are you guys sure this is going to be safe? We won’t be caught?” Jack asks in a hushed whisper, as the three carnivores stalk across the nighttime campus towards the Drama club. A thrill of adrenaline plays over the skin on the back of his neck while they cross over a deserted courtyard in full view of any potential watchers. The two larger carnivores move with a quiet confidence that Jack hasn’t seen in Legoshi before, and it almost makes him pause in thought. ‘They never look in the same direction,’ he thinks as they reach the other side of the courtyard and Riz holds open a door to an empty hallway. ‘They only look where they need to, totally trusting each other with their blindspots. Is this what it was like to be in a pack, back in the old days?’

“No one looks in the club rooms after dark, and the changing room has a lock on the inside,” Riz says quietly, not fully able to quell the soft rumble his voice makes.

Jack nods as he walks into the hallway as quietly as possible, quickly followed by Legoshi and Riz, the former walking slightly ahead of them and tasting the air ahead of them with his forked tongue. Half illuminated by the moonlight that streams in through the windows, the hybrid cuts an imposing figure as he walks forward.

‘Stalks,’ Jack mentally corrects himself. ‘He’s stalking, not walking. He’s totally in touch with his primal instincts, unlike me.’

“We’re safe,” Legoshi says in a louder tone as he straightens up and starts walking more normally. “No one’s been here for at least an hour, I think.”

“You’re getting really good with that sense of smell,” Riz says, coming up behind Jack and letting his footfalls echo for the first time since sneaking out and dodging the dorm mother.

“Thanks,” Legoshi mumbles with a shy smile.

“It’s really impressive,” Jack pipes up, nodding encouragingly.

They fall into silence again as they continue walking, eventually coming to a pair of large doors that Jack can smell a powerful odour of male animals and deodorant coming from. He wrinkles his nose as Legoshi fumbles with a key, wrinkling it more as the doors open and let the scent flow out into the hallway.

“I sometimes have to lock up after everyone leaves since I clean up after club a lot,” Legoshi says as they enter the changing room and he closes the doors behind them. “Sorry about the smell.”

Jack shrugs, although he coughs slightly while he gets used to the pervading scent of unwashed teenage males. “I guess it’ll help to mask the smell of, well,” Jack says, not finishing the sentence as he feels his cheeks flush with heat.

“The smell of?” Riz prompts, moving closer to Jack and bending down behind him, the bear’s mouth grazing Jack’s left ear.

“The smell of– the smell–” Jack stutters, hot breath ghosting over his ear making his heartbeat pick up in strength and the heat from his cheeks to spread down his chest and abdomen. “The smell of sex,” he finally manages. “When did you get all confident with making moves on me, anyway?” He retorts. “Last I remember, you were all over Legoshi but I was the one that put you on your back.”

The breath on Jack’s ear turns to a deep chuckle that sends a shiver up the labrador’s spine. One of Riz’s large hands encloses Jack’s right shoulder, keeping him locked in place as the larger carnivore nuzzles his nose against Jack’s ear, the simple touch leaving him leaning in for more. “I guess I just want to see that confidence undone,” Riz says, deep and low.

Jack looks up at Legoshi for help, and the hybrid returns his gaze with heavy yet unblinking lids. The way that Legoshi looks down at the labrador, eyes zeroed in and tongue occasionally flicking out of his mouth, makes Jack gulp. His stomach feels hot and tense, and the ache forming there grows stronger as Legoshi slowly kneels down to be at the same eye-level. Riz’s hand doesn’t move, and the sense of being unable to run is only reinforced when Legoshi raises one hand to Jack’s other shoulder. ‘He still hasn’t blinked,’ Jack thinks, the thought floating through his brain like froth on a cup of coffee. ‘Is this what it’s like to be prey? I’ve never felt the same instincts as him, are those instincts guiding him right now?’

“Are you alright?” Legoshi asks, his voice rough and husky, like he’s barely holding himself back from leaning in closer. 

Jack nods, breath shallow. “I am,” he says. “Some part of me can’t relax,” he adds. “I want to, but I don’t know.”

“Can I help you relax in any way?” Legoshi asks, his gaze softening. As it does, a little of Jack’s ability to breathe comes back to him, but to his disappointment, some of the arousal leaves at the same time.

“When you look at me like that, and I see your fangs,” Jack begins, licking his lips as he tries to articulate his feelings. “It makes me choke up, but I also like it. I want to let you keep going, but it’s hard to let go.”

Legoshi nods, and his brows furrow as he thinks. Then, slowly so as to let Jack pull away at any time, he brings the labrador’s hands up to the fur on his neck. “If you want to stop or take a break, you can pull my fur hard,” he says. “I want to help you let go,” Legoshi continues, and his voice once again slips into the hoarse growl from before. “You do so much, you deserve to relax.”

Jack nods, running his hands through the fur on Legoshi’s neck and pulling him closer. As he does, Riz starts to nuzzle into his neck again, prompting Jack’s body to relax on instinct. A whine escapes his lips as Legoshi moves his muzzle to the other side of Jack’s head, hot breath blowing into his ear. “I want you to take control,” he whispers.

“I can’t wait,” Legoshi whispers back, and Jack groans as a forked tongue grazes his ear. The groan heightens in pitch as the hybrid gently opens his mouth and presses down on Jack’s ear with his teeth. The tips of his fangs, always sharp from being constantly replaced, provide a pressure that could be so much worse should the hybrid choose to rip him apart. That possibility, paired with the absolute knowledge that Legoshi wouldn’t do that, or at the very least that Riz would stop him, quickens Jack’s heart more than anything else. The ache from before returns with a vengeance, and he can feel himself becoming painfully hard.

“I have to get out of these clothes,” Jack groans.

“Agreed,” Riz growls, and his hands move from Jack’s shoulders to his front, lowering down to undo his belt and pull it from his pants. While he does, Legoshi reluctantly pulls his mouth off of Jack’s ear so he can undo the few buttons on the labrador’s summer uniform shirt.

With his clothes loosened, Jack looks deep into Legoshi’s reptilian eyes as Riz’s thumbs hook under his waistband and stay there, waiting for permission. The warmth flushing through Jack’s body is almost uncomfortable at this point, and the prospect of having fresh air on his fur is incredibly enticing, and yet…

“Are you two going to get naked too?” Jack asks.

Legoshi smiles, lips parting to reveal his orange-lined komodo dragon fangs. “Yes,” he says simply. “You’ll have to let go to let me take my shirt off, but you can hold on afterwards.”

Jack nods, releasing the hybrid’s fur from his grip and watching wide eyed as Legoshi pulls his shirt over his head. Long muscles are strung along the larger carnivore’s lithe frame, the promise of power without bragging. The cream coloured fur on his stomach and chest contrasts with the rest of his blue-grey pelt, interrupted by long lines of scales that whisper the unspeakable violence wrought upon the hybrid’s body. The hard emerald green that pokes out causes Jack’s breath to catch in his throat, but he doesn’t let his gaze linger there for too long. Despite the pain that the injuries must have caused, both physical and psychological, Legoshi holds himself with a pride and intensity that makes Jack’s heart to swell.

“Like what you see?” Riz asks with another chuckle. Jack leans back onto the bear as the large hands pull down his pants and underwear with a slow unstoppability that turns him on even more. When his waistband passes the lower half of his hips, Jack’s erection pops out and into the naked air, already twitching for contact. “Oh, nevermind, I can tell you do,” Riz teases.

Legoshi’s tongue slides out of his mouth and runs along the margins of his lips as Jack is disrobed, and once again, instinctual fear lights up his brain. “You gonna eat me?” He asks weakly, the last feeble attempts at resistance quickly flagging under the gaze. “You seemed to like it enough last time.”

The hybrid’s eyebrows raise and his lips quirk into a grin at Jack’s words. “I think I will,” he replies, moving his muzzle in closer to press a kiss to Jack’s lips. Riz’s chest presses against the labrador’s back, sandwiching him between the two larger carnivores and their desires. As Legoshi kisses him, Riz’s hands migrate back up his body and under his shirt, pinching his nipples and making a muffled yelp of pleasure escape his lips.

“Can I fuck you?” Riz asks.

“Rex, yes please,” Jack moans, breaking the kiss with Legoshi so he can reply. “I need to warm up first though,” he adds.

“Of course,” Riz rumbles, and leans over to grab the lube out of the paper bag, passing it to Jack.

The labrador slowly drops to his knees, and then to lay on his back, pulling Legoshi down with him the whole way until the hybrid leans over him. Carefully, he lets go of Legoshi’s neck fur and pops open the lid of the lube, squeezing out a generous dollop onto two of his fingers before lowering them to his hole. Staring into his boyfriend’s eyes, Jack pushes his fingers inside himself with relative ease, the lube slicking him thoroughly. Legoshi looks up as Riz moves around them and kneels down, his own cock standing erect in front of the hybrid’s mouth.

“Mind warming me up?” Riz asks with a grin.

Legoshi rolls his eyes, but leans forward and takes the bear’s cock into his mouth.

“Holy hell, that’s hot,” Jack gasps, and immediately adds another finger to his hole, stretching him further. As he does, a small drip of drool slips from Legoshi’s lips and lands on Jack’s muzzle. Automatically, the labrador licks his cheek, and is rewarded with the ever-present taste of mint in Legoshi’s saliva. “I think I’m ready,” he adds, pulling his fingers out of himself and wiping the lube off on his leg. 

Quickly taking the time to shrug off his shirt as he sits up, Jack looks between Riz and Legoshi, who both look back at him with the same hunger in their eyes. “So, how’s this going to work?” he asks.

“Can I lift you?” Riz asks as he retrieves and puts on a condom before lathering it with more lube.

Jack nods hesitantly, and stands up. Riz’s powerful hands grasp him under his arms and easily lift him up to position the bear’s cock at his entrance. With a nod from Riz, Legoshi shuffles closer, still kneeling, and lets Jack rest his legs on the hybrid’s shoulders while Legoshi’s hands cup his cheeks in something akin to a seat.

“Are you ready?” Riz asks, and Jack nods again. “I’ll go slowly.”

Jack grips Legoshi’s neck between his legs with one hand, and uses the other hand to guide Riz’s tip to his hole. Gently, and achingly slowly, he feels the bear’s cock begin to enter him, as he gets lowered down by Riz. Without the need to line himself up, Jack reaches up behind him with his free hand to grab a fistful of the loose skin on the back of Riz’s neck.

Jack gasps as Riz steadily fills him, and halfway he has to tug on the bear’s neck. “Wait, I need to stop for a bit,” he pants, and Legoshi’s breath ghosts over his cock as the hybrid looks up from between his legs.

“You okay?” Legoshi asks.

“Yeah, just had to let myself adjust,” Jack says, relaxing his grip on Riz’s neck and leaning more of his weight on the bear’s chest. “Okay, I’m good to go,” he says, momentarily letting go of Legoshi’s neck to give a thumbs up before holding on again.

“Okay,” Riz says hoarsely, and lowers Jack the last few inches until his whole cock rests inside him.

“Fuck,” Jack whispers, cock twitching occasionally, mirroring the subtle movements that Riz makes inside him. He looks down between his legs at Legoshi just in time to see the hybrid’s forked tongue begin to make its way out of his mouth and curl its tines around Jack’s cock. Words completely leave the labrador’s brain as the hot wetness of Legoshi’s tongue runs itself up his shaft, and all he can do is let out a long, high-pitched moan of pleasure. When Legoshi looks up, he meets Jack’s gaze once again with half-lidded eyes.

Riz huffs as he begins to pull his cock out of Jack, clearly taking all his self control not to go faster. The restrained power that both larger carnivores display makes Jack feel like a butterfly pinned to a corkboard, and the fact that its being done for his pleasure makes him melt on the inside. As Riz starts the thrust back into him, grunting and letting a growl escape his mouth, Jack moans yet again, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

As his body begins to relax, Jack feels Riz pick up the pace until he’s being fucked to a steady rhythm, whining and moaning in time with each thrust. Legoshi’s claws dig into the meat on his rump, each one providing a pin-prick of pressure where the tip meets skin. Just when he thought that he was at the brink of sensation, warmth engulfs Jack’s cock as Legoshi takes the whole thing into his mouth.

“It feels so good to fuck you,” Riz growls into Jack’s ear.

“It feels really good when you fuck me,” Jack replies, desperately trying to stay quiet.

“You like getting ruined like this?” Riz asks, a teasing tone in his voice. “You like getting spread open for someone else to fuck you?”

“Yes!” Jack whines, throwing away the tattered shreds of his dignity. “I love it!”

In response, Legoshi’s grip tightens on Jack’s ass and spreads him apart for Riz’s cock to thrust even deeper. With this added feeling, pressure begins to build in Jack’s crotch and stomach as he gets closer to orgasm.

“I– I’m–” he tries to say, stumbling over his words as Riz continues to rail him while Legoshi’s tongue wraps and pumps over his cock. “I’m– gonna–”

“Good boy,” Riz grunts, and Jack can feel the bear’s hands grab him tighter under his arms, almost like Riz and Legoshi are about to pull him in half from either end. “I’m gonna cum soon, too, and I’m gonna cum inside you,” Riz continues, driving Jack further and further to the edge.

“Yes!” Jack gasps again. The pressure is almost unbearable, and part of him wishes he could touch himself, but he doesn’t need to. He’s already being tended to so well by Legoshi, the glorious wetness of the hybrid’s mouth covering his cock.

Jack can hear Riz’s breath getting quicker as the bear gets close to cumming, and his thrusts become more erratic. As he does, whines and moans keep being drawn out from Jack’s chest until eventually it’s all too much. With nothing more than a wail to warn Legoshi, the labrador cums into his mouth, releasing the pressure in a moment of ecstasy that gets drawn out by Riz’s own motion. Soon, he can feel Riz’s cock ram home, pulsing inside him as the bear cums inside him.

The world spins around Jack as he feels all of his muscles go slack. His feet tingle with a strange electric pulse as Legoshi pulls his mouth off of Jack’s cock and lets it droop backwards.

“Á̸͓r̵̛͔e̵̼̒ ̵̱͊y̸̡̎o̵̯̎ü̸̪ ̵̛͉o̸̳͘k̶̬̀a̷̜͒y̶͈͝?̵̣͆ ” He asks, and Jack furrows his brows at the words that he knows he should be able to understand. In the devastation wrought by his orgasm, Jack’s brain feels sluggish, and he barely registers Riz pulling out, apart from a sad feeling of emptiness.

“Jack,” Legoshi speaks again, this time a lot clearer as Jack gets lowered down to sit on the ground. “Are you okay?”

“What?” Jack replies, blinking hard. Both Legoshi and Riz are sitting with him in various states of undress, Legoshi still wearing his pants. “Yeah, I’m okay. That was really good.”

“Phew,” Legoshi breathes out.

“Thought we broke you for a moment,” Riz says.

“Maybe just a little, but not for long,” Jack giggles before standing up. Almost immediately, his head swims and he almost falls over.

“I think we should just sit here for a bit,” Legoshi says, once again lowering Jack to the floor and taking the time to rub his back.

After a few moments in which all three carnivores catch their breaths, Legoshi gets up from his sitting position and begins collecting discarded clothes from the ground. Jack’s eyes widen as he properly sees the huge lines of scales across Legoshi’s back from the performance of Adler for the first time. They represent incredible violence done to the hybrid, and the just the thought of it sends a stab into Jack’s heart. The end of the topmost of the ‘stripes’ merge over the scales that Legoshi got from that first night he came back to the dorm dripping in blood.

Legoshi wanders back over with a packet of tissues in one hand and Jack and Riz’s clothes in the other, both of which he hands to the sitting carnivores before sitting back down himself.

Jack cleans himself up wordlessly, occasionally stealing glances at Legoshi and his scales. When his gaze follows the scales up the hybrid’s face and neck, he sees Legoshi staring right at him.

“What?” Legoshi asks gently.

“Nothing,” Jack replies, looking away as he pulls his underwear back on.

“It’s clearly something,” Legoshi presses, shuffling forward.

“You can talk to us, Jack,” Riz adds.

Jack doesn’t say anything for a moment, looking down at the waistband of his pants in his hands. “I don’t want to ruin the mood,” Jack dismisses with a forced smile.

“I want to know what you’re thinking about,” Legoshi persists, reaching over and putting one hand on the pants in Jack’s hand. His claws press into the fabric, and Jack knows that, if he tries to yank them away, it will shred them to ribbons.

“A little while ago, Voss and I were talking about you, since you were having lots of nightmares,” Jack begins, still not looking up at Legoshi. Suddenly, Jack’s skin feels cold under his fur, but he doesn’t shiver. “I had woken up in the night and couldn’t sleep, and I was trying to think of ways to help you, and so we started talking.”

“What did you talk about?” Riz asks softly.

Jack’s fingers tighten on the pants in his grip, scrunching the material into a wrinkled mess. His stomach curdles, and part of him wonders if he’s going to be sick. He has to stop himself from flinching when Legoshi’s hand shifts to hold his own, but with the stability of the contact, Jack looks back up at the hybrid and into his unemotive, reptilian eyes.

“That night you went to go be a lookout,” Jack says, and Legoshi’s eyes widen slightly. “That fight you got into with the carnivore that came onto school grounds.” Jack swallows thickly. Suddenly, his throat feels dry, and his tongue becomes just a piece of meat in his mouth as he tries to form the words he needs to say. “You devoured him, didn’t you?”

The words hang in the air like the rotting stench that they are. Jack wants to say more; to take them back, to wipe them away and not think about it, but he can’t. “Voss told me that was probably what happened,” he continues. “And I’ve known for sure since you told me why you’ve been eating lemon juice. Your muscles have grown, even though it doesn’t look like it that much, you’ve grown taller, and all your hybrid changes happened soon after you had that fight. I read that meat can kickstart changes in your body, and I wanted to hear it from you, but you lied. You only told me half the truth, but that was good enough for me. But now, I’m looking at all the scales you have, all the injuries you’ve gotten and all the hurt you’ve been through, and I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Jack stops momentarily to catch his breath and hold back tears.

“I overheard Louis saying that Bill had been drinking rabbit blood before the performance, and that’s what upset you so much to fight him,” Jack says, continuing despite the wobble in his voice. “And I know that you’re not the kind of animal who commits a Devouring intentionally, so I want you to tell me the truth.”

“I did,” Legoshi says quietly. “I devoured him. Riz helped me bury the body just outside school campus, but there wasn’t much left.”

Jack smiles despite the awful truth being confirmed. He lets go of his pants and holds Legoshi’s hand tightly. “Do you,” he starts hesitantly. “Does it bother you?”

“Of course it does,” Legoshi whispers, looking away. “I keep having nightmares where I eat other people, too. Tem, Haru… You.”

“Oh.”

“My uncle is a psychologist that specialises in these things,” Riz says gently. “Legoshi’s going to see him tomorrow, actually.”

“Well, that’s good,” Jack says, looking between the two larger carnivores. Then, he gets up and crouches down to hug Legoshi from behind, warming the hybrid’s scales with his fur. “I’m glad you’re getting help.”

“That’s it? You don’t want to talk about it more?” Legoshi asks, a little bewildered that Jack would drop the topic so quickly.

“I don’t think I need to, if you’d rather talk to Riz’s uncle about it,” Jack replies, running his free hand over Legoshi’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Legoshi says quietly.

“Why don’t we all head back to the dorm?” Riz suggests. “I can cook some food for us all.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Jack agrees.

~~ Legoshi ~~

Tick

Tick

Tick

The clock on the wall counts the seconds away, each tick like the tapping of a chisel entering Legoshi’s skull. His ears flick towards it, and he can’t help but let his gaze follow them. An irrational anger at the clock bubbles inside him, and the only reason he doesn’t get up and rip the batteries out is that it’s one of the few sensory inputs that helps to mask the stench of stale cigarette smoke that pervades the room he sits in.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” Gouhin observes simply from the chair opposite Legoshi before taking another drag on his cigarette. The panda sits casually, one leg propped up on the opposite knee, and a clipboard rests on his lap. He had a pen in his hand when they started the session, although it’s since been abandoned for the cigarette.

“I’ve been told I’m too quiet,” Legoshi says, trying to sound normal against the background of sensory hell raging through his brain. “It’s hard to talk sometimes.”

“Why’s that?” Gouhin asks.

“I don’t know,” Legoshi replies with a shrug. His hands, held in his lap clasping each other, tighten as Gouhin exhales a cloud of foul smoke. “Sometimes things are…” Legoshi pauses, looking anywhere but into the black face markings that hide Gouhin’s eyes, “too much,” he finishes lamely. “Being quiet comes naturally to me, I suppose. I usually say the wrong thing, anyway.”

“What would be ‘the wrong thing’ to say?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can tell you don’t like the clock,” Gouhin says, gesturing with his head to it. “Can’t stand it either, why don’t you go and turn it off?”

Legoshi gets to his feet gratefully, unclasping his hands and restraining himself from ripping the clock from the wall. When he gets to the wall, however, he stops, brain catching up with what the panda said. Brows furrowing in thought, Legoshi picks the clock up and returns to his chair, turning it over and over in his hands.

“Why do you have this if you can’t stand the sound?” Legoshi asks, watching the hands tick merrily by.

“Patients get nervous if they can’t see the time.” Gouhin shifts slightly in his seat. “How does it make you feel? The clock, I mean. Angry? Do you want to smash it?”

“I did.” Legoshi looks up and wrinkles his nose as another cloud of smoke wafts over him.

“Not anymore?” Gouhin asks, shifting again as if he can't quite get comfortable. Every time he does, his cushion makes a squeaking sound that puts Legoshi's teeth on edge. “You could do it easily, too, tough guy like you, you’d just have to squeeze, or even spit.”

“It’s just doing its job, it makes no sense to destroy it if it’s just being what it’s made to be,” Legoshi says.

“But it still annoys you,” Gouhin persists, finally settling in his seat.

“So do you,” Legoshi counters. “I hate the smell of cigarettes, and they’re bad for you.”

“Oh, I annoy you, do I?” Gouhin chuckles, putting out the stub of his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and reaching for another.

Without even thinking about what he’s doing, Legoshi half lunges towards the cursed thing in Gouhin’s hand, launching the clock off his lap in the process and sending it skittering across the floor. Before his claws can gouge through the panda’s hands like they so desperately want to, Legoshi pulls himself back from the lunge, falling onto the table instead and tipping the ashtray onto himself. Fearing the kind of physical backlash that Savon meted out to him, Legoshi scrambles back before Gouhin’s enormous fist can bash yet more of his teeth out. When he stands up and finally looks at the panda, Legoshi sees to his surprise that Gouhin hasn’t moved an inch, save for move his box of cigarettes just out of Legoshi’s reach.

“You stopped yourself, good job,” Gouhin says, the smile becoming a grin. “Still made a mess, though.”

Legoshi pants, adrenaline coursing through his veins as he stands beside the chair, shirt sleeve stained with ash. His hackles have risen without him realising, and his fingers have curled into a position to start slashing. A few moments pass filled only with the sound of Legoshi’s heavy breathing, and he eventually begins to calm down. 

“You planned that,” Legoshi accuses hoarsely. “You were trying to get a reaction out of me.”

“Worked, too,” Gouhin replies easily. “I knew that sound wouldn’t set you off on its own, but you’re still mostly canine, and the one thing canines can’t stand is bad smells.”

“Why?” Legoshi asks, bewildered.

“I wanted to see if you could restrain yourself if provoked, and you could, just,” the panda reveals. “I can tell a fighter when I see one, and although the physical effects of devouring another animal should mostly have worn off by now, its the psychological ones that stick around. If you had actually attacked me, you’d be knocked out cold and tied back up in a cell with your mouth clamped shut so you couldn’t spray any more venom.”

“That was really dangerous!” Legoshi exclaims. “What if I had spat at you?”

“I’ve got anti-venom spray behind this chair and a stun-gun in my pocket if I really needed to take you down quickly,” Gouhin says with a shrug as he finally picks up the pen and begins writing something down. “You’re not the first dangerous animal I’ve treated, pup, and you won’t be the last. Sit down,” he adds without looking up.

Carefully, Legoshi returns to his seat, still casting suspicious glances at the psychologist as he finishes writing some notes. His body visibly tenses again when Gouhin puts the clipboard down and stands from his chair, but he forces himself to relax when the panda walks past and back to the small kitchenette attached to the lounge. The sound of clinking and pouring water comes soon after Gouhin leaves Legoshi’s field of view, and a vaguely herbal smell that he doesn’t recognise finds his nose. When the panda walks back into sight, he bends down to place a cup on the table in front of Legoshi, and another one in front of his own seat.

“What is this?” The hybrid asks, picking it up and sniffing the vapour rising from the liquid.

“It’s bamboo tea,” Gouhin replies over his shoulder as he pulls the discarded clock out from underneath a cupboard. When he sits back down, he places the clock back onto the table in front of Legoshi before settling back. “Notice anything?” He asks cryptically.

Legoshi puts the tea down, finding the smell alone unappetising, and picks the clock back up for inspection. “It’s not ticking anymore,” he says finally. “I broke it.”

“Yep, you did. That’s what happens when you lash out.” Gouhin picks up the cigarette carton and shakes it theatrically. “You stopped yourself from actually attacking me, but you still broke something around you. That’s what you’re living with when you hang around with herbivores, and even other carnivores, that can get hurt when your instincts take over.”

“But I like my friends,” Legoshi says. “It’s not the same thing. The clock was annoying, and I’m sorry I broke it, but my friends aren’t clocks. Or whatever.”

“And you’re just going to rely on the people around you never being annoying? That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve heard in a long time,” Gouhin scoffs. “Guess what, the world is full of people who are annoying, it’s full of assholes, and if you don’t learn to take more care with things, you’re going to wind up breaking something, or someone, that lands you in prison.”

Legoshi falls silent, thinking back on all the moments he has hurt or scared the animals around him. The terrified look that Miguno gave him the morning they found out about the Devouring that happened on campus rears its ugly head in his memory. He hadn’t even consumed meat at that point, but he still found it so hard to control his emotions. 

“Can I ask you a question?” Legoshi asks, still staring at the unmoving clock hands.

“Sure, I might not answer you though, just so you don’t get your hopes up,” Gouhin answers, sipping at his cup.

“How do you see yourself?” Legoshi looks up at Gouhin, finally bringing himself to gaze into where the panda’s eyes must be. “I know that pandas can live only off of bamboo, and I know you don’t allow meat in the building, and I couldn’t smell any on your breath before you started smoking earlier, but you’re still in the carnivore family. So do you see yourself as a panda with a strong body, or a carnivore that doesn’t eat meat?”

Gouhin is silent for a moment before his face breaks out into a grin. “Would you look at that, you actually asked a pretty good question!” He laughs. “Looks like that fancy school of yours is actually teaching you something.” The panda settles down into a thoughtful posture as he thinks seriously about the question. “It’s true that most pandas only eat bamboo, but it’s actually a misconception that we can’t eat other things. Lots of pandas also eat bugs for an extra protein source, or some will even occasionally eat meat. The question is irrelevant for me, though.”

Legoshi looks at Gouhin with confusion. “What do you mean, irrelevant?”

Although he can’t see the panda’s eyes, the look that Legoshi is fixed with bores straight into his soul. “I abandoned the beast inside me a long time ago,” Gouhin says. “I don’t need the nutrition from meat that carnivores like you do, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t get a boost out of it, physically and mentally. I ate meat a lot when I was young and stupid, and because I’m a bear, I grew big and strong, and I thought that I was invincible. I fought in illegal brawling rings, had cheering fans, you name it. Then, one day, my best friend at the time was bragging about how strong he was at a bar we were at, and he got into an arm-wrestling contest with a big male ox. They took it outside so they could get a bigger crowd, me included.” The panda pauses, looking far away into the past, and from what Legoshi can tell, it isn’t a pleasant experience. “The ox won the contest, and my buddy ripped his arm off. It all happened so quickly, at first no one knew what to do, or even what had happened. Then, you know, someone screamed, and there were some cops nearby, and well, old Jota never was one to back down.”

Legoshi listens with a growing pit inside his chest. He knows the conclusion of the story, it’s one that’s been played out on the news over and over again since he was old enough to be able to understand the radio. “What happened?” He asks, despite himself.

“They shot him dead. Right there in the street,” Gouhin says simply. “Nothing prepares you for that sort of thing. I never got to ask him why he did it, either. Did he lose control? Was it intentional?” The panda sips his tea again, and his posture returns from the dark, brooding place he momentarily went to. “Anyway, I used the money from my cage-fighting to pay for college, and then I went to medical school, and then I retrained as a psychologist, all to try and figure out what exactly happened that night.”

“Did you?” Legoshi asks. “When you became a psychologist, I mean.”

“Ha! No, I learned that a few years down the track when I almost tore the throat out of a sheep that insulted my mom. For that split-second, I could only see my patient as meat. So I quit eating meat altogether, even bugs, and I moved here into the Black Market. At first I suppose I was scared, like you were when you first showed up here I bet, scared that I was doomed to be a slave to my instincts. I almost got killed by my patients a few times, and it was only by the good graces of some friendly carnivores that I didn’t bleed out on the street. Then I get a call from the half-father I thought had estranged me saying that his grandkid was being sent to Cherryton, and I needed to step up for once in my life and help the cub out.” Gouhin rolls up one sleeve of his t-shirt and flexes an impressive set of muscles. “I had to make sure I never got close to death even again after that call. Long story short, I’m just a doctor with a strong body.”

Silence reigns between the two after Gouhin finishes, and not knowing what else to do, Legoshi takes an experimental sip of his tea. It’s only his politeness that stops him from spitting it back out into his cup.

“What, you don’t like it?” Gouhin chuckles. “No matter, let’s get to some of the other shit we needed to get to,” he adds, flicking over a page on his clipboard. “You tried out those magazines yet? You get off to any of it?”

The tea sprays across the table, and it’s only Legoshi’s unease with eye contact that prevents it being sprayed directly at Gouhin. He doubles over, barely putting the cup down before breaking into a coughing fit that lasts until the panda gets up and smacks him once between the shoulder blades. “What?!” Legoshi yelps in embarrassed shock.

“I didn’t give to you for no reason!” Gouhin says irritably, sitting back down and wiping spots of tea from his notes.

“No!” Legoshi says, still clearing his throat. “I haven’t ‘checked myself’ with them, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did!”

“No need to get all shy at this point,” Gouhin growls. “From the way you’re acting, I’d think you were still a virgin, but you reek of Riz’s scent, and that gives me a pretty good idea of what you’ve been getting up to.”

Legoshi opens and closes his mouth a few times in shock before picking up the tea and drinking a full, disgusting mouthful to distract himself. “I skimmed through them when I got back to my dorm that night, but I put them away and haven’t looked at them since,” he grumbles between sips of the horrible tea. “And I’ve been thinking through my feelings about Haru and Tem well enough by myself, without looking at porn magazines.”

“Sweet Rex, I hate dealing with kids,” Gouhin mutters angrily, and Legoshi can see his hands tense as he reins in another angry outburst. “You still have dreams of eating them, right?”

“Well, ye– uh,” Legoshi stutters.

“They’ve spread to other animals, am I right? Probably other canines in particular, maybe even ones that you’re close to or you have a thing for,” Gouhin continues in the same, barely restrained tone of voice.

“How did you–” Legoshi begins.

“BECAUSE I’M GOOD AT MY FUCKING JOB,” Gouhin shouts, making Legoshi jump slightly and quickly put the tea back on the table. “You devoured a dingo, so the next thing your brain will focus on as a target for meat is going to be other canines,” he continues at a more normal volume. “And since your predatory instincts are twisted up in your feelings for other animals, the worst kind by the way, the canine you’re closest to is going to be next. You probably really do want to have a good relationship with these animals, and that’s a good thing, but that’s just your rational self making excuses for the ugly truth of why you want to get and stay close to them! I might be able to put away the beast, but you can’t, and you need to recognise that.”

“But, what, I can’t be friends with them then?” Legoshi asks. “But Jack has been my best friend since we were pups, and he’s kind of boyfriends with Riz and I!”

“He’s WHAT?!” Gouhin rockets up from his chair at that, and Legoshi momentarily considers making a run for it right there and then. Fortunately, the panda gets a hold of himself and sits back down with a few huge breaths. “Obviously, you can’t cut ties with him, but please, Legoshi, you need to get some kind of space before something goes seriously wrong. You get where I’m coming from, right? Your need for meat is never going to go away, but that doesn’t have to turn into another Devouring. Right now, because you haven’t worked through these issues in therapy, you are a danger to other animals around you. Even eating meat isn’t going to help with the cravings because the trauma of committing a Devouring is fucking with your head! The only reason I’m not keeping you on hold in one of those cells is because you’re a kid, and I don’t want to get investigated for kidnapping!”

“I don’t want to eat meat,” Legoshi blurts out automatically, stomach flipping at the idea.

“Then don’t, at least for now,” Gouhin says, voice reeling in to a much more reassuring tone. “You’ll have to eventually, every carnivore does, but for now, please limit your contact with the herbivores at least. A canine can defend themself, but an alpaca and a rabbit are incredibly vulnerable to being devoured. If you went after them, there’s nothing they could do to stop you.”

Legoshi slumps down into his chair, the weight of his problems feeling like it’s going to crush him into the cushion and never let him return. “I understand,” he mumbles. 

“Good,” Gouhin says gruffly. “You know, there are other medical professionals who you can talk to at Cherryton about these things. They can’t give you therapy, but they’ll listen and keep you company if you’re struggling with your instincts in school.”

“Really?” Legoshi asks, looking up hopefully. “Wouldn’t they report me to the police?”

“Strictly speaking, they’re supposed to, but I’ve got a good network of people who are, let’s say, more enlightened.” Gouhin gets up from his chair and walks back to the sink. “I got you approved to come off-campus for regular therapy, didn’t I?”

‘There’s animals on campus who will spend time with a student they know is struggling with wanting to commit a Devouring,’ Legoshi ponders while staring at the empty chair in front of him. ‘There has to be something wrong with them as well, right? I wonder if any of them have committed a Devouring before.’ His thoughts are interrupted by a dishcloth being dropped unceremoniously into his lap.

“Alright, therapy’s over for this week,” Gouhin grumbles. “Clean up all the shit you spilled and get out of here. Oh, and tell that dumbass nephew of mine that dinner’s on me on Thursday.”

Chapter Text

~~ Legoshi ~~

“This paint’s drying out, we need more water to thin it or it’ll be too opaque on the paper and the light won’t shine through.” Kai’s voice comes from around the side of the big T-Rex model that the stage crew are working on painting, although Legoshi doesn’t pause in the slow, methodical work. He chose to be stationed up here when the jobs were being divvied up, in the full blast of the sun, and as far away from other animals as possible.

‘I have to stay away from Tem and Haru, and preferably other carnivores too,’ he thinks to himself, trying to let his brushstrokes distract him from the feeling that Gouhin is looking over his shoulder. ‘At least Kai isn’t a canine. Going back to the dorm after therapy was bad enough.’

“Legoshi,” the mongoose says louder, walking around into Legoshi’s peripheral vision and crossing his arms.

“What?” Legoshi asks, looking around guiltily.

“You’re zoning out way more these days, the least you could do is tune in for some basic instructions,” Kai says with a tinge of frustration in his voice as he picks up and thrusts a few buckets into Legoshi’s hands. “We need more water to make an even coat, go fill these up and I’ll mix up our paint for us.”

Wordlessly, the hybrid nods and stands up, pausing to let the sun soak into his scales for a moment before descending back down into the shade of the huge model. His reptilian instincts tell him to stay up there and bask, maybe even remove his shirt to really let his scales sun themselves, but he drags himself away. At least he can say hello to Riz when he gets down from the scaffolding not strong enough to take the heavy bear. 

“Hey pup,” Riz greets him with a smile as he steps off the last platform of scaffolding. The bear is holding a large paintbrush and continues to coat the dinosaur’s belly with broad, even strokes as Legoshi approaches. “What’s up?”

“Kai said we needed more water to make an even coat,” Legoshi explains, trying not to focus on the scents of other animals that waft over him now that he’s on the ground. “I don’t think it would really make a difference, right?”

“Probably not,” Dom pipes up, looking over Riz’s shoulder with his long neck. “But isn’t it great to see him get so into it? When Kai first came to the stage crew, he hated it, but I think he’s really getting into the painting side of props and things.” The peafowl’s voice is happy, and Legoshi smiles slightly in response to Dom’s bright attitude before quickly looking away. “You’re not too hot up there?”

“No, part reptile,” Legoshi mumbles in explanation. “Basking feels good, but I wish I didn’t have to wear my shirt,” he adds. Realising what he said too late, his eyes widen and he shuts his mouth with a snap. “I mean, uh, obviously not in public!”

“Whoa, Legoshi!” Dom laughs. “Well forgive me Riz, but I certainly wouldn’t complain if you wanted to work shirtless up there.”

“Dom!” Legoshi gasps, looking at Riz, who seems to also be laughing.

“It’s so easy to fluster you, Legoshi,” Riz chuckles. “And hey, I wouldn’t complain either,” he adds, making Dom laugh even harder.

Legoshi walks quickly away from both other animals, blush rising up his face and staining his cheeks crimson. He can’t help notice the way that every animal he nears in his march walk around him like there’s some force-field a few metres away from his body. Even herbivores larger than him move out of his way without even making eye-contact with him. ‘What’s going on? Am I invisible to them?’ Legoshi thinks to himself. As his gaze slides onto the animals around him, Legoshi sees the way the herbivores’ bodies tense slightly as he goes past, and the carnivores’ tails flick from side to side in aggressive displays. ‘Wait a second, they’re seeing me, they’re just all avoiding looking at me,’ he realises, posture slumping as the truth sinks in. ‘I guess that’s fair enough. What do I look like to them? A big, scarred, scary carnivore hybrid stomping along and grimacing.’

When he gets to the water tap, Legoshi kneels down and puts his hands under the stream so the water streams through his fingers and into the bucket. The cool liquid splashes down his palms and wrists, jolting him out of the thought spiral. The world suddenly feels less tinged with red, not that Legoshi noticed the world changing colour in the first place. He splashes his face slightly with the water, allowing him to wrestle his thoughts back into order.

‘I’m not going to attack anyone, and the reactions of other people don’t matter anyway,’ he thinks to himself deliberately. Repeating the phrase in his head over and over again gives the hybrid the confidence to stand up straight again. This confidence lasts until he feels his tail brush up against something. When he looks around, his walls of self-assurance immediately begin to crumble as his eyes fall upon what he brushed against.

“Hey there, Legoshi!” Haru greets him brightly, looking up with a smile. “I’m surprised to see you outside of campus, it’s nice to see you out in the sun!”

‘You are the last person I want to be around,’ Legoshi thinks frantically. ‘Well, no, I desperately want to be around both you and Tem, but I shouldn’t. She’s just a friend, it’s okay, don’t freak out.’ He turns to face Haru and bends at the waist until he’s at eye-level, bracing his hands on his knees. “How is Gardening club going, with preparing everything, for the festival?” He asks, stumbling over his words as his thoughts go haywire inside his brain.

“They’re okay,” Haru giggles. “Actually, it’s much better with Tem helping, but there’s still some things that I need help with moving. Could you do that?”

‘I need to stay away from you,’ Legoshi reminds himself internally. Looking over the rabbit’s shoulder, he sees Tem watching them from afar, caught halfway between making labels for different potted plants. They lock eyes for a moment, and Tem smiles before giving a small wave. As he does, Legoshi can’t help thinking of that night on the rooftop, and the way that Tem’s face was set in determination. ‘You need to stay away from me, too,’ he thinks.

“I think I’ll be busy with Drama club things, I’m helping to paint the T-Rex,” Legoshi mumbles aloud, turning his attention back to Haru. 

“Oh, that’s alright,” Haru says, sounding slightly disappointed. “It looks like a big job, Tem was saying how he’s afraid of heights when we were watching you earlier.”

‘You were watching me with Tem?’ Legoshi thinks, tail wagging slightly. “Yeah, I’ll see you around,” he says, and begins to walk away after an exchange of ‘goodbye’s with Haru. When he ascends the scaffolding and brings the water to Kai, he takes some time to properly enjoy the sun. Talking to Haru stirred up a lot of things he’s trying to avoid, but it also made him feel strangely calmer, more himself. 

“Ugh, the pretty boy’s here,” Kai mutters over the paint bucket, bringing Legoshi out of his momentary zen. “I guess I can’t slack off when the star actor might come up and chew us out. Wonder what he’s here for.”

Legoshi looks down to see the familiar figure of Louis walking through the festival grounds, making a beeline for the Gardening club stall. When he gets there, Tem conspicuously starts walking towards the tap for buckets as Louis starts talking to Haru. Gently, the buck reaches out a hand and pets her between the ears. To Legoshi’s shock, Haru smiles.

It’s a warm, comfortable smile, and even Legoshi can tell that there are serious emotions behind it. It’s nice to see he smile like that, but it’s a bittersweet realisation that he’s never seen that smile when he’s around. Come to think of it, Tem hasn’t smiled that way around him either, at least not for a long time. He might have sometimes, but that was before Duncan’s Devouring. Now, it always seems like there’s some block in place, some hurdle he can’t quite jump over to show all of his emotions.

‘Tem, I wonder if you’ll ever look at me like Haru looks at Louis,’ Legoshi thinks to himself. 

“Alright, done.” Kai’s voice cuts in again, and Legoshi can hear him set down one of the newly mixed buckets of paint beside him.

Legoshi looks at the paint, and glances back down at Tem beginning to make his way back to the Gardening club stall. ‘He was watching me,’ he thinks, repeating Haru’s words in his mind. Legoshi looks at the sunlight beating down onto his arms and shirt, and notes how good it feels on the scales on his palms.

With a small grunt, Legoshi pulls his shirt up and over his head, leaving it hanging on the scaffolding rail and letting the sunlight warm his whole body. What wind there is feels glorious on his bare fur and scales, and he smiles.

~~ Tem ~~

“Wow, he’s really putting on a show for you, isn’t he?” Haru observes, and Tem doesn’t have to look around to tell that she’s grinning.

“I think he’s probably putting on a show for his boyfriend,” Tem replies, deliberately focusing on writing the long list of labels he still needs to get through, and not looking up. The distant sound of both Riz and Dom whooping enthusiastically travels easily across the festival grounds, and several other animals briefly join in for a laugh. However, a smaller sound catches Tem’s attention. It’s a small ‘tch’ of disapproval, and when Tem looks up, his view of the model T-Rex is obscured by Louis’ regal antlers, standing tall like the branches of some mighty tree. Their gazes briefly meet when the buck turns to the stand, and Tem looks away. ‘Not my business,’ he thinks to himself as he once again concentrates on the labels.

“Oh, Louis!” The teasing tone that was filling Haru’s voice is replaced by a soft, flustered surprise that Tem has to stop himself from rolling his eyes at. “I didn’t know that the acting team had rehearsal today.”

“They don’t,” Louis replies, and for once, his voice lacks the hard edge that Tem so closely associates with the buck. “I came alone.”

“What for?” Haru asks.

Louis lets out a soft laugh at her words, and Tem can see him leaning over the stall counter from the corner of his eye. “I came to see you, of course,” he says softly, almost shyly. “How is it going with setting up? You have a lot of plants to work through.”

“Tem is a lot of help,” Haru says. 

“Ah, yes,” Louis says slightly awkwardly.

Tem looks up from his label-making with a polite smile and once again meets Louis’ gaze. There’s something there that he doesn’t expect, and the glimmer of it looking out through the usually imperious herbivore’s eyes makes him pause slightly. ‘Legoshi said he had this ‘look’ when the students from the journalism club found them,’ he thinks to himself. ‘I wonder if it’s the same one as now. He looks so… lost.’

“How, um,” Louis begins. “How are you? Doing, I mean.”

“I’m, uh, doing okay,” Tem replies, feeling just as out of his depth as Louis looks. “Sorry to leave the Drama club so suddenly like that,” he adds, having no idea why is does. It’s like the awkwardness is sucking the words from his lungs and he can’t stop them. “It must have been really annoying to train someone else up so quickly. I saw the performance, Zoë wasn’t bad at Odie,” Tem continues, silently begging for someone to stop him.

“Tch,” Louis obliges Tem’s wordless request with the sound of disapproval. “He wasn’t completely useless,” the buck says, thankfully banishing the brief appearance of his softer side. Seeing him like that is somehow extremely offputting, and Tem relaxes as the familiar barrage of thinly-veiled insults of other animals wash over him. “It looks like I was right to put Kai in the stage crew, although my casting of Bill and Legoshi on stage was a mistake,” he adds bitterly.

“Oh yeah, they didn’t really gel,” Tem says mildly.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t see that their fight was real,” Louis says in disbelief. “You spend time with Legoshi, yes?”

“Oh no, I know it was real, I just didn’t expect it to boil over on stage,” Tem says, eyes sliding away from Louis’ penetrating stare and back over to Riz… and Legoshi. “He can’t seem to step away if he’s noticed or is being bothered by something.” Standing in the sun at the top of the scaffolding, Legoshi’s many scales are on full display to the whole of the festival grounds. Tem finds his eyes following how the lines on his back ripple with movements of underlying muscles he wouldn’t have thought the hybrid had.

“Hm," Louis grunts. “If I’m being honest, I’m surprised you still spend time with Legoshi since then, but at least he’s the one who could make a slightly more reasonable case for his actions than Bill. I suppose cats and dogs really don’t get along.”

Something about the way that Louis says the last sentence with an audible smirk doesn’t sit quite right with Tem, and he turns to Louis with a frown. However, the buck is already saying his goodbyes to Haru, patting her between the ears affectionately before walking away.

“So, he’s not a dick all the time,” Tem observes dryly, the comment about cats and dogs souring any good graces he can afford to Louis.

“He’s not a dick!” Haru protests, rolling her eyes. “He came all the way here when he didn’t have a rehearsal to see me.”

“He came now because there’d be fewer animals who would recognise him,” Tem counters. “I don’t know why you like him, he’s the total opposite of you.”

“You really want to talk about opposites attracting?” Haru asks, gesturing with her chin towards Legoshi and Riz. “Saw you couldn’t keep your eyes off the hunk up there.”

“Well, that’s,” Tem stutters, momentarily derailed. “Alright, you got me there, but at least they’re not afraid to be seen in public with me,” he counters. “I’ve got my own issues, but that’s not treating you right. You like him a lot, and Louis clearly likes you as well, but if he can’t bring himself to risk something for you, is he really worth it?”

When Haru stays silent, a wave of regret washed over Tem. ‘Maybe I went too far,’ he thinks.

“He makes me feel less lonely,” Haru says eventually, still holding the plant pot she was when Louis first approached. “Sure, we only really hang out at the Gardening club, but he’s one of the few guys that asks me about my day, or actually opens up about some of the stuff that bothers him. I know that he’s not perfect, and yeah, I wish we could be officially together, but I’m happy when I’m with him, and he’s happy when he’s with me.”

Tem goes to say something about how that’s still not a good relationship, and there are plenty of other guys out there who are like that, and she should stop being so fixated on this one buck, and stops. Riz’s voice shouting up to Legoshi echoes across the festival grounds, and Tem looks back over at the pair. “Are we both fucked?” He asks glumly without looking at the rabbit.

“Maybe,” Haru says with a slight chuckle, putting the the pot on the table and leaning her elbows on either side of it. “But you know, we’re still in highschool, at least for now. My dad’s told me all about how he’s changed since he was in highschool, usually about how I could be better, but I guess it applies to everyone too.”

“What, are you saying you can fix him?” Tem jokes.

“I don’t know if I could do that, but there’s hope that he can change for the better,” Haru counters. “Anyway, I don’t think we’re both fucked,” she adds.

“Why’s that?” Tem asks, looking down to his side at Haru.

She looks up at him with a mischievous grin. “Because out of the two of us, I’m the only one who’s actually getting any.”

Tem can feel his cheeks and the tips of his ears going pink at the implication, and he shoves the finished labels over to Haru to distract from the leer that the rabbit is fixing him with. “You just, just, put these on the right pots, will you?” He says with a flustered tone of voice.

Haru giggles.

~~ Riz ~~

“Not that I’m complaining or anything, but aren’t those scales in a kind of familiar pattern?” Dom asks in a voice tinged with worry.

“Yeah, he gets them instead of scars,” Riz replies in an even tone.

“But he has so many,” Dom says in a slightly hushed tone. “And not just the ones from Bill either.” He lets the implication hang in the air between them, the silence becoming palpably tense.

“He gets into fights,” Riz says, struggling to come up with a reason that isn’t the obvious, that Legoshi has been in actual life and death struggles.

“Right,” Dom says, not very convinced. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s gotten into a really intense fight.”

Riz doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t.

“Herbivores’ll have to go back to school soon,” Dom speaks again, this time in an almost conversational tone. “You know, because of the most recent murders.”

The hackles on the back of Riz’s neck leap up and spread out his fur in an intimidating silhouette, but only for a moment before he gets control of himself. Riz’s paint stroke has only been slightly put off, and it doesn’t seem like Dom has noticed. “Oh, yeah, those sounded really awful on the news,” he says, thoughts racing to try and figure out what Dom is getting at.

“A family of squirrels was murdered the next city over, and a duck was found nearby our school, partially devoured,” Dom continues. He’s silent for a few more moments after that, as if waiting for some reaction from Riz.

‘What the fuck?!’ Riz thinks to himself, forcing himself to continue painting like this is the normal conversation it isn’t. ‘Is he accusing me of something? Is he accusing Legoshi of something?!’

Eventually, Dom sighs, as if disappointed that Riz isn’t contributing to the discussion. “If you were, say, a minority that crosses certain social barriers, you might be more likely to hang around other species and other trophic groups, even if you might usually not do that,” he says, still painting peacefully. “Hearing that kind of news is really scary for herbivores, and it’s even scarier when your worried carnivore friend is really unconvincing when he tries to tell you that his boyfriend isn’t a murderer.” 

Riz’s hands freeze mid brush-stroke, and he can feel himself panting slightly with stress. He can feel his neck creaking as he turns his head to his side to look at Dom, who’s still diligently painting the model’s paper sides. “He’s not.” Is all that comes out of Riz’s mouth.

Dom finally stops painting, and turns his own head to make eye contact with Riz, fixing him with a critical stare. “Did I ever tell you I was almost devoured once?” He asks.

Riz shakes his head. ‘Oh fuck,’ he thinks.

“It was summer, like this. I was twelve, and I was kissing in secret with my boyfriend, he was a jaguar.” Dom’s pitch black eyes bore into Riz’s skull, almost distracting the bear from the way his hand shakes slightly while holding the paintbrush. “Birds have really thin skin, and cats tend to latch on when they get hot and bothered. Neither of us really knew what we were doing since our sex-ed was basically ‘don’t do it’. Then he smelled the blood.”

Riz’s stomach drops, imagining his friend as a kid, suddenly shunted from illicit pleasure into pure terror. ‘He’s so… Fragile.’ he thinks to himself. ‘Dom’s always been the cool, confident upperclassman, never afraid of what people think of him for being gay and flamboyant. Now he looks so scared.’

“It was like a switch flipped in him, and when I pulled away, his claws gashed open my shoulder. We were kissing in this old abandoned warehouse, and I locked myself in one of the old offices. I was lucky he wasn’t older and strong enough to break down the door.” Dom’s voice trembles slightly as he recalls the traumatic event. 

Riz feels bile rise in his throat in both a protective urge over the younger self of his friend, and in disgust at himself and the carnivorous urge in general. “What happened?” He asks, mouth dry.

“He calmed down after a minute and brought me a medical kit,” Dom says, attempting to shrug off the bad memory. “We talked for a long time through the door while I bandaged my shoulder. He told me about the Black Market and meat eating, I could tell he was trying to hold it together, but he fell apart after a bit. That’s what I remember the most, how he cried.”

“I assume you broke up with him?” Riz asks.

“He broke up with me, actually,” Dom laughs, surprising Riz. “I wanted to try again, figured that true love could break through any barrier, you know? How a kid thinks about it. He didn’t trust himself after that, and I was too naive to recognise the dangers.” His eyes narrow, and Riz can’t bring himself to look away. “Because it was dangerous for me, before he had his instincts under control, I mean.”

Riz hears a complaint from Kai high up, followed by the low mumble of Legoshi’s reply, and he glances up at the hybrid before returning his gaze to Dom. “I get what you’re trying to say,” Riz says solemnly. “Legoshi wouldn’t ever mean to hurt any herbivore. He wants to protect other people, especially people who he cares for.”

“And I’m sure that Kyle was just trying to be close to me when he scratched me,” Dom replies evenly. He breaks the penetrating look he’s giving to Riz in order to rub his forehead with one hand. “Look, I like you both, I really do, and I’ve got a certain amount of responsibility to look after younger queers, especially hybrids like Legoshi, but you have to tell me if he’s safe for me to be around. On that, are you safe to be around? Do you, you know, keep things in check?”

Riz gulps, nodding silently.

Dom hesitates, clearly conflicted by the fact that Riz has likely eaten the same kind of meat that comes from the peafowl’s friends. “Good. And Legoshi?” He presses.

“Legoshi…” Riz starts. “He’s trying,” Riz sighs. “It freaks him out, but he’s getting therapy.”

“There’re therapists for that?” Dom asks, sounding genuinely interested.

“Yeah, at least one,” Riz confirms, not mentioning his familial connection. “If it makes you feel better, Legoshi prefers, uh, sour meat.”

“I don’t know the terms for different cuts, Riz,” Dom says icily.

“Don’t make me spell it out,” Riz pleads slightly.

Dom folds his arms. “I’ve been very open, you know,” he says, voice somewhat accusatory.

“Carnivore meat,” Riz says wretchedly.

“Oh.” Dom’s brows raise slightly and his arms relax in surprise. “Well, are you safe, then?”

“Yeah,” Riz says. “We’ve got an understanding.”

“Alright then,” Dom says, and turns back to his painting. 

Riz waits for him to say something else, but no more conversation is forthcoming. Eventually, Dom checks the time on his phone and starts packing up wordlessly. Once he’s finished, he walks back into the rest of the festival grounds and starts rounding the rest of the Drama club herbivores, some of the carnivores following along. Kai scuttles down the scaffolding to follow him, but it’s a good few minutes before Legoshi comes down, pulling his shirt back on as he does.

“Has everyone gone back?” Legoshi asks. “I got distracted basking, sorry,” he adds apologetically.

“Don’t worry, the nurse said you needed to air them out, it’s good that you’re doing that,” Riz reassures with a smile.

“Did you and Dom talk about something serious?” Legoshi asks. “I looked down and you looked tense.”

“Yeah, we did,” Riz says. “But we talked it out,” he adds.

“Okay, that’s good,” Legoshi says. Riz can’t tell if the hybrid actually thinks things are resolved or he’s just being polite, but he doesn’t have the energy to try and work out the difference. Besides, Legoshi’s attention seems to have been captured by something else, his tail standing straight out from his body and ears pointed forward.

Riz follows his boyfriend’s gaze, and frowns as he sees what he’s looking at. Both Haru and Tem are still peacefully working at their booth, too caught up in conversation to have noticed the late hour and lack of other herbivores on the festival grounds. Riz puts one hand on Legoshi’s shoulder, feeling how tense his muscles are. “Legoshi,” he says softly. “Don’t you think it’s better if you stay away from them for a bit? Remember what Gouhin said.”

“But they’ll have to walk to the train station by themselves,” Legoshi replies, still not looking away from the two herbivores.

“Hmm,” Riz hums. “Alright then,” he relents, rolling his eyes at how Legoshi’s tail begins to wag. “But we’re taking separate carriages after that.”

Legoshi doesn’t answer for a few moments, and finally nods. “Okay,” he says.

~~ Legoshi ~~

Basking in the sun all afternoon has helped distract Legoshi from the troubles of his world. His scales feel pleasantly warmed by the time with his shirt off, and it’s been glorious not to have the texture of cloth against his skin. Now, when he walks over to Haru as she fills a bucket with water while chatting to Tem, his palms and chest clench. He’s not actually doing anything that a normal self-respecting carnivore friend wouldn’t do, of course they would care about their herbivore friends’ safety. Bill is clearly friends with Els, although he’d never say it, and he’d offer to walk her to the train station.

These explanations and more flit through Legoshi’s mind as he feels his body tense in anticipation. Haru and Tem’s scents filter through air and make his tail wag. When he gets closer to Haru, it’s only Riz’s hand on his shoulder that stops him from looming over Haru.

“Hi Legoshi,” Tem says as Haru looks up at the two carnivores behind her.

“Oh! It’s the Gardening club heavy labour division,” Haru jokes with a smile.

Self-consciously, Legoshi squats down very low to be nearer Haru and Tem’s eye level. He still avoids eye contact. “We should all go to the train station together,” he says earnestly.

“Sure, we can do that,” Haru chuckles. “But why?”

‘I should look at them so I’m not being weird,’ Legoshi thinks, and forces himself to look up. “Because it’s dangerous outside,” he says, unblinking. Both Tem and Haru’s ears wilt slightly at that, and Legoshi internally panics. ‘What did I do? What did I do? I was being honest!’

“I think he means that it’ll be safer with us,” Riz says from behind Legoshi, petting him between the ears affectionately.

“Yeah, that, sorry,” Legoshi mumbles, looking away again.

“Alright, I’ll just collect my things Mr. Weirdo,” Haru teases.

~~

‘This is…nice,’ Legoshi thinks to himself. 

He holds Riz’s hand as the four of them walk through town and towards the train station. Several animals give the two carnivores odd looks or even outright glares, especially those looks directed at Legoshi, but he ignores them. Riz’s hand keeps him grounded against the haze of animosity coming from their onlookers, and Legoshi walks steadily forward down the stairs. He keeps one ear on the conversation, and occasionally steals glances at Tem.

Tem immediately catches his eye.

‘FUUUUCK,’ Legoshi panics internally as he quickly looks away, and he briefly fumbles in his back pocket for the mask he usually keeps there. The bright pink makes Haru giggle, but Legoshi can’t deny that it’s extremely effective at blocking out scents, and hiding his scales from the eyes of others.

Eventually, they stand at the train station, and Legoshi looks again at Tem.

The alpaca is already staring at him, and it feels too awkward for Legoshi to look away a second time, so they just stand there looking at each other while Haru and Riz chat on Legoshi’s other side.

“Why do you keep looking at me when you’ve been avoiding getting close all day?” Tem asks, quietly enough so that only Legoshi can hear him.

‘I can’t tell you the truth,’ Legoshi thinks. ‘I can’t say how much I want to be close to you, how much I want to feel your wool under my hands and listen to all of your plans for your life. I can’t tell you about the dreams I have of being near you, because then everything would come out at the same time.’

“Have I?” He asks nervously.

“Ever since the first night on the roof, I’ve felt like you’re holding something back,” Tem says, still staring into Legoshi’s eyes in a way that makes him want to squirm. “Like there’s this part of you that you always hide away from everyone.”

‘That first night…’ Legoshi thinks, images of Tem confronting him and Riz passing through his head, and the trio subsequently spending much of the night cuddling in a pile asleep. He and Riz had walked the alpaca back to his dorm, and the whole time they said nothing. Legoshi had bared his fangs at the darkness, fluffed up his tail in case Duncan’s devourer was still around. He had shown a hint of what was inside him to Tem, and what would eventually burst forth in his terrible hunger a few weeks later.

“Oh man, it’s been pretty hot today, I hope the sun wasn’t too much for you with your wool,” Legoshi deflects badly, desperately trying to avoid the subject.

“Why don’t you ever bring that night up?” Tem asks, looking away. His voice is low and hard as he speaks, brows becoming a frown. “I put myself in danger around you and Riz, and neither of you ever say anything. You just act like it’s okay, like nothing bad happened.”

At the mention of his name, Riz hesitates stops chatting to Haru and tunes in. Legoshi can hear the two shifting slightly to take in his and Tem’s demeanours. 

“Are you alright?” Riz asks both of them, squeezing Legoshi’s hand.

A train is approaching in the distance, tunnel lit up ahead of it.

“When you walked me back to my dorm,” Tem continues, ignoring Riz’s question. “Both of you were growling and baring your fangs. How could you do something like that on the day my roommate was devoured?”

Legoshi cringes, pulling up another bucket of self-loathing from the deep well within him. ‘It was to protect you, but even when I’m trying to do that, I still hurt you,’ Legoshi thinks. It feels like the ground is opening to swallow him whole without even doing him the kindness of crunching him up first. 

The train arrives in a blur, whipping the wind around them and through Tem’s perfect wool. Even though the sound buffets Legoshi’s ears, his focus is so subsumed by listening to Tem speak that he can still hear the alpaca’s words as if said in complete silence.

“You have no idea what it’s like to be an animal that could be eaten at any moment.”

The words hang in the air as the train goes by, causing all three other animals to fall silent.

“Riz told us that he eats meat,” Tem says.

Legoshi feels his boyfriend grip his hand tighter.

“I could get eaten by a carnivore before ever falling in love and you never will,” Tem continues. “You can’t ever understand me, so stop trying to be close to me.”

Part of Legoshi wants to tuck tail and shrink into nothingness. A darker part of him considers jumping down onto the tracks and running until he gets hit by next train that comes along. Another part however, a part that Legoshi wishes he doesn’t have but does nonetheless, frowns.

‘I could try to understand you,’ he thinks, a little bit of indignant anger bubbling up. ‘I’ve been trying to understand you, and myself. Why don’t you try understand me, Tem? You don’t have to struggle with these instincts I wish I could rip from my body. You don’t have to worry about people finding out that you’re venomous and kicking you out of public spaces.’

Tem goes to walk away in the wake of his words, but Legoshi reaches out and grabs his arm, stopping him.

Everything in the world seems to focus on that grip, and Legoshi can feel venom begin to seep into his mouth at the force of emotion welling up inside him.

“Let go, I’m going to go to the herbivore-only carriage,” Tem says angrily.

“No,” Legoshi replies, turning to face Tem head on and pulling his other hand free of Riz’s. “We aren’t done talking.”

“FUCK YOU!” Tem shouts this time, trying to pull away to no avail. 

Legoshi tightens his grip.

“We ARE done talking! Don’t fucking tell me otherwise!” Tem shouts again, voice raw and loud. “You don’t even fucking KNOW ME,” he adds in a snarl.

“No,” Legoshi repeats. He can feel Riz put one hand on his shoulder, and the bear is saying something, but he ignores it.

Tem tries to swing his free hand at Legoshi in a useless punch, but the hybrid catches it easily and narrows his eyes. When Legoshi speaks again, it’s in a low, deadly growl.

“No,” he says.

“Legoshi!” Riz hisses right his ear, Reaching around his back and grabbing Legoshi’s wrists, squeezing with the strength that only a bear on a regular diet of meat can produce. Even with the strength reducing medication, Legoshi can still feel his bones creak under the force.

The hybrid lets go, and Tem falls backwards onto the concrete heavily.

Haru runs around both carnivores to help Tem up and throws a glare at Legoshi.

“Look around you, you big idiot,” she whispers. “You could get arrested just for arguing with an herbivore, this isn’t school.”

With that, it feels like a switch flips in Legoshi, and the growl leaves his throat. It’s just as well he’s wearing a mask, because he was definitely snarling when he spoke. When he looks around, his stomach drops.

Every single person on the platform is staring at him. Expressions of horror and fear are plastered across every herbivore smaller than him, and even on some of the larger ones. Several carnivore adults look on with disapproval or disgust.

“What’s that wolf doing! Don’t tell me he’s going to devour that alpaca!” A fearful goat says on the brink of panic.

“I think that’s a hybrid, look at that green shit on him,” a lion mutters with a sneer. “I bet he’s going feral, they all do eventually, should just be put down.”

“Mom? What’s happening?” A caiman child asks his mother who looks on with a nervous look at any nearby herbivores.

“That one, officer, he grabbed that alpaca,” a seagull says, pointing at Legoshi while talking to one of the train station security.

“HEY!” A wild-dog officer shouts while striding towards Legoshi. “STEP AWAY FROM THE HERBIVORE.”

Legoshi quickly steps back, slouching into a show of submission as he almost trips over Riz’s feet. His immediate cringing response does little to dissuade the officer’s approach, and Legoshi can see two others making their way over, a bull and a snow leopard.

“I’m sorry,” Legoshi says, tucking his tail between his legs.

“It’s alright, I have him,” Riz says with an authoritative tone that makes the security officers hesitate. A big bear practically swaddling the cowering hybrid in his embrace seems quite effective at making it seem like he has it under control.

“I’m sorry,” Legoshi repeats, partially to Riz, and partially to Tem. 

The alpaca stands up with Haru’s help and, to Legoshi’s surprise, pushes off attempts at comforting him from other nearby herbivores. In fact, Tem strides forward, only to be stopped by the wolverine.

“I wouldn’t come closer,” the officer says sternly. “He tried to attack you.”

“No he didn’t you fucking idiot,” Tem says angrily, surprising everyone assembled. “We had an argument and he’s an impulsive moron,” he adds, glaring at Legoshi.

Legoshi feels his tail wag slightly at Tem coming to his defence, but it stays tucked.

“Are you sure? Don’t let him intimidate you,” the officer says sceptically.

“Yes I’m fucking sure, are you fucking deaf? Now stop looking like you’re going to arrest him!” Tem replies viciously.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” the wolverine growls, and stops. In an effort to cover up the slip up, he turns to glare at Legoshi. 

“If you’re sure, we’ll let him off with a warning,” he says, still talking to Tem. “But you better not cause a scare like this again, you hear me!?” He adds to Legoshi.

Legoshi nods, avoiding the glare like the plague.

“Then let him off with a warning!” Tem says exasperatedly.

Eventually, the officers reluctantly recede from the scene, leaving a huge circle or space around Legoshi and Riz that not even other carnivores will breach.

“Thank y–,” Legoshi begins.

“Stay away from me,” Tem interrupts, and turns away.

“Okay,” Legoshi says quietly to the retreating form. He stays slouched, tearing his gaze away from Tem and Haru and looking down at his clenched hands. Legoshi squeezes his hands as hard as he can, so hard he can feel his scales flex and pierce, bringing the pain he knows he deserves.

“Hey,” Riz says quietly, reaching down and taking Legoshi’s hands in his own. “Squeeze my hands, alright? But don’t hurt yourself.”

“I deserve it,” Legoshi mumbles, all the warmth of the sun having drained from his body to be replaced with cold depression.

“Tem would just get angry at that, you know,” Riz reasons. “If he knew you were hurting yourself, he’d tell you that you’re being stupid.”

Despite himself, Legoshi exhales a short sharp laugh. 

“He would,” he agrees, and withdraws his talons from his flesh. “I still want to, though,” he admits.

“I know,” Riz says, and Legoshi hates himself even more for the sadness evident in his boyfriend’s voice. “Just squeeze my hand instead.”

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

~~ Riz ~~

Riz walks through a room in his dorm and sees his roommates.

They’re all sitting around the table and praying, which is confusing, because none of them have prayed over food since he’s known them.

“Sit down Riz!” One of the other ursids urges enthusiastically. When he speaks, it sounds like the screams of a thousand rusty doors.

Riz sits down.

When he looks at his roommates, none of them have any eyes.

Riz walks through a room in his dorm and sees his roommates.

They’re all sitting around the table and praying, which is confusing, but he keeps walking past instead of waiting to look.

“Sit down Riz!” One of the other ursids urges enthusiastically. When he speaks, it sounds like the screams of a thousand rusty doors.

Riz walks into the hallway out of the room and finds it packed with other students. They all turn to him and screech in unison

Riz walks through a room in his dorm and sees his roommates.

His heart begins hammering and a pain starts pounding in his brain. He almost falls back as he wrenches the door back shut on his roommates. 

He’s somehow transported into the room despite not walking through the door.

He begins to shout.

“Sit down Riz!” One of the other ursids urges enthusiastically. When he speaks, it sounds like the screams of a thousand rusty doors.

“RIZ!”

He jerks awake, sitting up with a great tearing sound as he shreds his pillowcase, opening his eyes to see Amos looking worried with the curtains to Riz’s bunk open. A few seconds pass, and Riz almost falls back down in pain at the stabbing sensation that goes through his skull like an ice-pick.

Amos presses a container into Riz’s hand that isn’t clutched around one eye and half of his forehead. Riz is so familiar with the shape that he doesn’t even have to open his squeezed-shut eyes to know that he’s been handed a bottle of honey.

He fumbles the cap open and guzzles the golden liquid like it’s the finest ambrosia, rather than the disgustingly sweet gloss over his rotting body. The migraine begins to ease slightly as he drinks the honey, each gulp bringing him back to normalcy by fractions of an inch. All in all, it takes two whole bottles to get Riz to the point that he can open his eyes.

“Thanks,” he says in a weak voice.

“No problem, bro,” Amos says, briefly putting a comforting hand on Riz’s shoulder.

“Did I wake you up?” Riz asks, realizing that it’s still dark in the room, but still not able to bring himself to look at a screen to tell the time yet.

“Nah, I was already awake. Dan and Tagu’ve already gone out for their run, it’s about six,” Amos explains.

Riz sighs in relief and closes his eyes, taking a sip from his third bottle of honey.

“That sounded pretty nasty,” Amos prompts, still in a half squat and clearly not moving until Riz opens up. “Been a while since you’ve had a nightmare like that, anything happen?”

“Yeah, I guess yesterday was kind of stressful,” Riz mumbles, visions of his boyfriend almost getting arrested on the train station replaying in his head. “The meteor festival is usually a lot of work.”

“Did something happen with Legoshi?” Amos asks.

“Why do you think Legoshi was involved?” Riz replies, badly trying to deflect but revealing more instead with his expression.

“Your side effects have been way less of a problem since you two started dating, so I figure if something happened to bring them back this bad, it’s probably to do with the guy,” Amos reasons.

“Yeah, he was involved,” Riz admits.

Amos sighs, and shifts his weight slightly. “Am I going to have to go beat him up for hurting you?”

Riz laughs slightly but cuts himself off, the sound aggravating the pain in his head. “No, don’t do that,” Riz says. “Although, respectfully, I don’t think it’d be as easy as you think it would be,” he adds.”

“Ha! Well, he may be tall, but I’ve got heart,” Amos scoffs, mimicking a line from a kids’ movie. “Well, should I text him for you then, since I don’t think you’ll want to look at screens?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Riz says gratefully, and lays back down in his bed. “Could you tell him to come over before getting breakfast?”

After a few minutes, they hear a gentle knock at the door and the sound of heavy breathing on the other side.

“Damn, he’s fast,” Amos comments as he gets up to open the door.

Riz shields his eyes from the light that briefly gets let in as Amos leaves and Legoshi enters the room, and keeps his eyes closed as his boyfriend pads over quietly. After taking a moment to catch his breath, Riz hears Legoshi kneeling down beside his bed. 

“Hey,” the hybrid says quietly, almost a whisper. “I did some research on what can help with migraines, and I’ve got a heat pack for you.”

Riz smiles slightly. “Thanks pup,” he says.

“There’s also some neck massages that can help that I’ve been practising on Collot since he’s got the biggest head out of my roommates,” Legoshi continues earnestly.

“You’ve really thought about it haven’t you?” Riz asks, slightly amused despite the pain in his head and eye.

“Well yeah, of course,” Legoshi says. “I mean, I caused this, didn’t I?” He adds, quietly.

Riz reaches sightlessly for the hybrid, gently settling the lanky arm his hand comes in contact with. “It’s not your fault,” Riz murmurs. “You can’t control my migraines or side-effects.”

“I can try not to trigger them, though,” Legoshi insists. “When I had therapy with Gouhin, I accidentally broke something of his when I lashed out, a clock.”

“I’m not a clock,” Riz says, not sure where this is going.

“I know, but I mean that I need to take responsibility, and I know that migraines can be triggered by stress, and I know I fucked up at the train station,” Legoshi says, beginning to ramble slightly. 

Riz doesn’t interrupt, however. He senses that, if he did, Legoshi wouldn’t be able to get it all out in one go, and they’d be in for another few weeks of extracting it bit by bit like a splinter.

“I know you want to help me and look after me,” Legoshi continues. “But I have to do that for you now, that’s what it means to be in a relationship. I don’t know if you want the heat packs or a massage, but if there’s anything else I can do, I want to know so I can do it. I could even skip out on the festival preparation if you want me to, I can lie way better if I’m texting.”

Riz opens his mouth to protest, but shuts it again. ‘Maybe therapy really is working, huh,’ he thinks to himself.

“You were also hurt by what Tem said,” Riz says eventually. “Aren’t you still, you know, depressed?” He adds lamely.

“Well yeah, but that’s not anything new,” Legoshi says with a hollow chuckle.

“That doesn’t make me feel better, you know,” Riz replies.

“I don’t have to be fixed to help you as well,” Legoshi counters.

A long moment passes in which neither of them says anything. Riz imagines Legoshi staring at him in that unblinking way that he found so strange when they first met. He feels the hand on Legoshi’s arm become enveloped in the hybrid’s own, the curved talons gently hooking around his fingers. The things are so clearly designed for slashing open bellies, and yet somehow, they’re holding him so tenderly.

Riz feels his heart swell to such a degree that it fills his throat, causing him to barely be able to form words.

“Massage?” He manages, opening his eyes slightly to try communicate with Legoshi where his words are failing.

“Heat pad first,” Legoshi says with a rare smile. 

Riz can see his tail begin to wag.

~~ Legoshi ~~

“Dude, where are you going? Our carriage is down there.”

Legoshi halts as he tries to slip away from the rest of the Drama club and desperately tries not to look guilty. He turns back to face the group, most of which stops and looks curiously at him. A few of the members break away to walk towards the mixed carriage they were originally going to use.

“Oh– oh yeah, oops,” Legoshi says, not quite meeting anyone’s gaze.

“What’s wrong, Legoshi?” Dom asks.

“I, uh, it’s kind of embarrassing, but I got told not to use the mixed carriages yesterday,” Legoshi explains, reaching up and tugging anxiously at one ear. “I got into an argument with Tem at the station and the security took it the wrong way…” he trails off before settling into an uncomfortable silence, trying not to look at his fellow clubmates, and especially not at any of the herbivore students.

“Well that’s shit,” Dom says, surprising Legoshi enough to look up at him. The peafowl is frowning, and his arms are crossed in front of him. “The world is coming to something where a carnivore and a herbivore can’t even have an argument with each other.”

“It was a pretty big argument,” Legoshi says.

“Whatever, it’s not like you’re going to attack one of us on the train,” Dom scoffs, prompting a few passing animals to look around as they go by.

“It’s fine, really, I’ll just go on the carnivore-only carriage,” Legoshi tries, avoiding the prying eyes as much as possible. ‘I should put my mask on, all these smells are getting overwhelming.’

“It’s chill, Dom,” Bill cuts in loudly before the herbivore can press the issue. “I’ll go with him and make sure our wolfy isn’t lonely.” The tiger steps forward and puts one arm around Legoshi’s shoulders with a grin. “Or I guess, lizard-wolf guy. Our boy,” he corrects himself.

Legoshi makes eye-contact with Aoba as Bill waves off the rest of the group, and the eagle gives him a sympathetic look. It makes him think back to that night in the Black Market when they came to support him after being picked up by Gouhin. 

‘We’re here for you, but you have to talk to us, okay?’ Aoba’s words bubble up in Legoshi’s mind as he and Bill start walking towards the carnivore-only part of the train station to wait for their carriage.

‘I should lean on them more,’ Legoshi thinks to himself as he slips his mask on self-consciously. ‘Relying only on Riz is just making things worse.’

The hybrid sighs, feeling the familiar cold cling-film of depression begin to slip itself under his skin. ‘I’m such a fucking failure of a carnivore,’ he thinks.

“Yo! Where’d you go there, bro?” Bill asks, pulling Legoshi out of his thought spiral before the train tracks can start looking inviting once again. The tiger is looking at him with an uncharacteristically serious expression, and Legoshi realises that they’re sitting down on a bench by themselves.

“When did we sit down?” Legoshi asks, looking around. The carnivore-only area is usually pretty sparse, so there aren’t many other animals nearby.

“Just now, I was talking to you but you were zoning out,” Bill says, continuing to look at him with concern. “Are you like, dissociating or something?”

“I guess,” Legoshi mumbles, and runs the ends of his talons through the fur on his head. The sensation is grounding, and he quickly feels some of the world return to his perception. “Things have been kind of rough lately, but I’m trying to work through it,” he adds.

“That’s tough, but good on you for saying it,” Bill says, leaning back on the bench and splaying his legs wide. “You just helped me win a bet, by the way.”

“What do you mean?” Legoshi asks, looking sideways at the tiger.

“Tao, Aoba, and I have this bet on who of us you were gonna open up to first,” Bill explains with a grin. “They both bet Aoba, but I bet on myself. Because, you know, I’m a winner.”

Legoshi actually laughs at the other carnivore’s boasting, making Bill’s grin grow wider. “That’s so dumb,” Legoshi says.

“Maybe, but twenty dollars is twenty dollars.” Bill shrugs, self-satisfied.

The pair settle into a comfortable quiet, but Legoshi can tell that the usually hyper-active tiger is having difficulty sitting still. Bill shifts ever so slightly every few seconds, as if he can’t get comfortable, checks his phone a few times, and even flicks his tail around so he can pick at the split ends.

“Is it, you know, carnivore issues?” Bill asks without looking away from his tail. “You said some stuff’s been rough lately.”

“I guess,” Legoshi says with a sigh. “My best friend Jack found out that I, you know–” he looks around, but there’s no one within earshot of the pair, especially with the noise of other stations echoing in the tunnel. “–that I devoured someone, and I’ve been feeling kind of on edge the past few days. Tem said some things yesterday about how I’ll never understand what it’s like to be afraid for my life like a herbivore is, but he isn’t even letting me try to understand, which like, what the fuck!”

As the expletive leaves his mouth, Legoshi realises how animated he has gotten while speaking, and quickly cringes back, hiding the claws he has so recently been gesticulating with. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Nah bro, let it all out!” Bill encourages. “You don’t have to hide anything around me, that’s the whole point of being in the carnivore-only section. You don’t have to worry about scaring some herbie cop just because you’re excited or something.”

“Oh,” Legoshi says. “I didn’t really think of it like that.”

“Yeah man, rant all you want,” Bill says smoothly, and Legoshi actually does relax slightly. “It’s rude to do that around herbivores because it’d be a dick move to trigger their instincts like that, but it’s chill here. How’d your friend even find out, anyway?”

“He’s known for way longer apparently, he’s really smart, but he saw all my scales after we had sex and that–” Legoshi starts to explain

“After you WHAT?!” Bill interrupts incredulously.

“Oh, don’t you know? Riz and I’s relationship is pretty open,” Legoshi says dismissively. “Anyway, he saw all the scales on my body and couldn’t stop thinking about the fight I got into with the guy I devoured, so he asked me properly.”

“I’m still reeling with the whole thing of you fucking your best friend but whatever I guess,” Bill says, shaking his head dumbfoundedly. The tiger’s expression turns into a wince of regret as he continues, however. “I know I said all that shit about both of us being predators when I gave you those stripes, but that was fucking dumb, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Legoshi says. “I mean, you weren’t wrong,” he adds with a little laugh. 

“Crazy that you can joke about it, to be honest,” Bill replies.

“My uncle told me something that helped me think about it better, that the world is like an ocean that can polish my scales if I don’t let it crush me.” Legoshi smiles as he remembers the words back in that cell. “Besides, I think I’m starting to like my scales, sometimes.”

The fall back into silence properly as the two teenage carnivores digest the conversation, and eventually step onto the train carriage when it arrives. It’s not quite as crowded as the mixed carriages, but the amount of people in close quarters is still enough to put Legoshi on edge, and he grips the overhead railing hard.

During the journey, he feels Bill nudging him slightly, and looks sidelong at him.

“Do you want to hold my hand or something?” The tiger asks in a whisper, gesturing at Legoshi’s other, clenched fist.

Wordlessly, Legoshi nods and takes the proffered hand gratefully. The tips of Bill’s claws press into his hand as the tiger gives him a small squeeze, but they feel surprisingly gentle. Legoshi marvels internally at how quickly their rivalry has turned into friendship, but doesn’t pull away.

When they get to their stop, Bill holds onto Legoshi’s hand as they disembark so as to not get separated into the press of bodies. One carnivore, a weedy-looking lion, shoves Legoshi’s shoulder hard as he goes past, followed by a small assortment of other carnivores.

“Faggot,” he says viciously to a titter of laughter from his friends.

“And proud of it, you fucking incel,” Bill replies viciously before raising his voice, still not letting go of Legoshi’s hand. “HEY EVERYONE, THAT LION JUST CALLED US FAGGOTS,” he shouts over the general din.

A hundred pairs of eyes zero in on the lion in question, whose expression goes from evilly confident to horribly self-conscious. His friends quickly scatter, leaving him in a small circle by himself.

“THAT’S RIGHT, HE’S A LITTLE LOSER WHO THINKS BEING A HOMOPHOBE MAKES HIM A BIG MAN!” Bill continues with a confidence that Legoshi could never muster. “Let’s get out of here before security tells us to fuck off,” he adds in a quiet voice to Legoshi.

Laughing as they do, both carnivores duck below the general head-height for people on the platform and run, Bill clearing a quick path for Legoshi to follow. The hybrid feels a thrill of excitement go through him as they break out of the crowd, and he grabs Bill in a  quick, tight hug on instinct.

“That was crazy! How do you have that much confidence?” Legoshi asks, still laughing.

“It’s my huge cock, gives me all the confidence I need,” Bill replies easily.

“We’ll have to compare some time, figure out if I should be more confident,” Legoshi jokes on automatic, but freezes as he sees Bill’s expression change to something unreadable. “Fuck, sorry, uh,” Legoshi begins, realising they’re still holding hands and trying to pull away.

“No it’s chill,” Bill says in a strange little choked voice. “Not gonna lie,” he adds, clearing his throat. “That was kinda hot.”

“Legoshi, I swear to Rex,” Dom says from behind him. “You better not be cheating on Riz, or I will have to feed you chocolate without you knowing.”

“FUCK!” Bill exclaims, jumping a foot in the air as Legoshi whips around to face the peafowl, and as it turns out, a decent amount of the Drama club as well. 

~~~

“How is it that I can’t get a single girlfriend but Juno is thirsting after you, you’ve got TWO boyfriends, AND you’re awakening things in Bill, when I’m cool and outgoing, and you’re so awkward!?” Kai complains loudly.

The stage crew sits around in a rare moment of not having any more work to do, and it seems like questions surrounding Legoshi’s relationships have been fermenting in the other animals’ heads since the train station.

“I don’t know, I didn’t try to do that,” Legoshi mumbles, ears flicking back and forth in embarrassment.

“Besides, I don’t think that it’s a positive that Juno has the hots for him,” Kibi says quietly from Legoshi’s left. “Hold still, Legoshi, I don’t want to pull out any hairs,” he adds more normally.

When they first sat down, Legoshi had sighed in exhaustion, and the little anteater had offered to pick the split ends from his tail. Surprised, Legoshi had hesitantly said yes, and now his tail lays over Kibi’s knees as they relax in the evening heat.

“Ugh, I tried to tell her to go away, I even told her that I’m gay,” Legoshi grumbles. “I think she’s backed off a bit since my scales came through, though.”

“I always got this weird vibe from her, you know?” Dom says in the same low tone of voice. “Some straight girls are like that, they kind of fetishise gay guys, it icks me out.”

“Oh uh, right,” Kai says apologetically. “Sorry, then. But that doesn’t rule out the other stuff I said!” He rallies. “How did you become such a player?”

“Maybe you’re just trying too hard,” Dom teases.

‘I’ve missed this,’ Legoshi thinks to himself, settling into a comfortable silence as the rest of the crew bickers and jokes. ‘Before the Devouring, and my Devouring, before all this complicated stuff.’

Suddenly, all the lights on the festival grounds cut off, plunging the entire area into pitch blackness.

‘I fucking jinxed it, didn’t I?’ Legoshi adds internally just before the first shouts of alarm ring out.

~~ Tem ~~

‘There, that’s all the labels put where they should be, doesn’t that look so nice and neat?’ Tem thinks as he lines up the pots on the bench, trying to distract himself from the pointed looks Haru has been giving him all day.

“You’re just not going to talk about it, huh,” The other carnivore finally says. “Just going to ignore it like all the rest of your problems?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Tem replies, frowning slightly.

“Fucking Rex, are you serious right now?” Haru asks in frustrated disbelief.

“What do you want from me, Haru?” Tem snaps, rounding on her. “Maybe I didn’t handle things that well, but I meant what I said to Legoshi, he’ll never understand us, there’s no point in pretending like he will. Besides, he grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go”

Tem picks up a watering can in each hand from the ground and stomps off towards the public tap, ignoring the rabbit following him.

“I never said that what he did was right, but I’m not going to pretend that what you said was right either!” Haru says. “You said that he’ll never understand, and sure, he might not ever really get it, but at least he’s trying! He hides his claws and fangs whenever he’s around us, he spends time with you and tries to learn how to garden from you, but I don’t ever see you doing the same for him.”

Having reached the tap, Tem shoves one watering can under and wrenches the handle so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t come off. 

“What if I don’t want to understand him? I already know a bit about the whole ‘dietary’ thing, and it that was pretty horrible to learn about,” he spits angrily. The first can fills quickly, and Tem pulls it viciously out from the gush, replacing it with the empty one. “What if I don’t want him to understand me?” He adds.

His body feels hot, and a lump forms in his throat that’s difficult to talk past.

“Why wouldn’t you want him to understand you?” Haru asks, confused.

“Because no one should understand me!” Tem almost shouts, rounding on the other herbivore. “If they did, I’d be sorry for them, because it’d mean they’ve got a pretty terrible life. I act all bubbly and friendly, but I’m rotten inside where it counts.” Tem’s voice cracks slightly as he continues, and he can feel the edge of a sobbing breakdown looming behind his words. 

“When I talked to the police after Duncan got devoured, they basically said that he killed himself by carnivore, and you want to know the first thing I did that evening when I got back to school? I fucking tried to do the same thing but with Riz and Legoshi. Neither of them have ever mentioned it, but I can tell that it bothers them sometimes. I feel good when I’m around them, and I think I like them, but all I can think of afterwards is whether or not I’m just trying to get them to eat me. And you know what, I don’t think I can tell anymore! I might just be that fucked up!” Tem is almost laughing at this point with hysteria. The watering can has long filled up and now overflows, flooding the grass around the tap and soaking into Tem’s shoes. “So that’s why, Haru. If Legoshi understood me, he would see how much of a selfish fucking creep I am, how I’m just using him to–”

Tem stops ranting when Haru throws herself at him and wraps her arms around his frame, knocking the breath out of him and leaving him to replace it with sobs.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” Haru says quietly as Tem begins to cry into the space on her head between her ears, some of his tears mixing in with the growing puddle at their feet. “Just let it all out, you’ve been holding all this in for a while, haven’t you?” She asks gently.

Tem can only nod, words having now left his ability.

"You can keep hugging me, but I'm going to turn off this tap now," Haru says, and shuffles around slightly so she can reach the spigot and close it.

Tem clings to her the whole while, clutching her shoulders like he'll float away if he doesn't. Sobs wrack his body, causing him to almost collapse if not for Haru's support. Tem's soul feels like a spoiled fruit, outer skin barely holding its shape while the inside has long since decayed into sludge. The outburst seems to have pierced a hole in that skin, and now everything is collapsing, his festering heart oozing out and covering Haru in its suppurating fluids. 

Part of him wants to push the other herbivore away, save her from becoming tainted by disgusting psyche, but another part can't bear to let her go. It feels selfish to keep her so close when he's clearly sick to be around.

'I wonder if this is how Legoshi feels about me,' he thinks to himself.

Eventually, with a lot more patting of Tem's back and soft words from Haru, he calms down enough to stop actively crying, although a few tears still trickle down his cheeks. At Haru's gentle urging, they move away from the flooded grass around the tap and closer to the treeline around the festival grounds.

“Sorry,” Tem mumbles into his knees, legs tucked up against his chest as he sits on the ground. “That was a lot.”

“Don’t apologise, I can’t stand it when people apologise for having feelings,” Haru replies with a surprisingly harsh tone that almost makes Tem flinch. When she sits down, however, the rabbit pats him on the shoulder once more and turns a friendly smile towards him. “It was a long time coming, huh?”

“I guess so,” Tem half-chuckles with exhaustion. “I feel so… gross. Like I’m poisonous.”

“Do you think Legoshi feels like that? He has actual venom he needs to worry about you know, not your made-up depression venom” Haru points out.

“Maybe? He kind of hates himself, although that’s pretty obvious.” Tem shrugs, ignoring the friendly jab at ‘made-up depression venom’. 

He thinks about what it was like for Legoshi’s grandfather, a komodo dragon in a relationship with a wolf, back fourty years ago. ‘Could venomous and non-venemous animals even get married back then? Can they now?’ Tem thinks. ‘I don’t even think gay marriage is legal, and cross-species marriage was only legalised what, four years ago? Five years ago? Is Legoshi not even allowed to get married to who he wants to?’

Suddenly, the lights go out, plunging the entire festival grounds into darkness.

‘Oh fuck,’ he thinks to himself.

“Fuck,” Haru says aloud.

Tem almost laughs at how the other herbivore practically voiced his thoughts, but stops himself. Now is not the time for humour.

‘I can’t see shit, neither can Haru, none of the other herbivores can either.’ The sounds of worried shouting rise from different places around them as Tem tries to think about a way out of this mess. He can vaguely hear Bill and Aoba shouting something across the grounds, but it’s drowned out by the panic all around that he can’t see. 

‘The only ones that can see anything are the carnivores. That’s why all the recent Devourings have been committed at night.’ The thought slips down the back of Tem’s shirt and presses into the nerves at the base of his spine, telling his legs to kick out and start running. ‘But that would leave Haru alone, and I can’t do that,’ he thinks. ‘I might not be able to make a difference if we get devoured, but at least I could try.’

He reaches out to his side and pulls Haru closer, surprised to feel her trembling under his touch. “The power will come back on soon, don’t worry,” he says quietly to the other cowering herbivore. ‘Strange how trying to comfort someone else makes you feel more in control,’ that always-observing part of Tem comments in his brain. ‘I wonder if that’s why she does it so often.’

“Haru! Tem!” 

A few voices shout their names at the same time, and over the din of panicking herbivores, Tem can’t figure out who they are. ‘Is it Riz and Legoshi? No, I haven’t seen Riz today, and Legoshi wouldn’t want to be around me after yesterday, they must be some other people, but who? Do I even have many friends in the first place?”

The voices shout their names again before going silent.

‘They’re probably herbivores that can’t find us because it’s dark, they’ve probably already gone past,’ Tem thinks to himself with a dull certainty.

Then, a patch of darkness ahead of him becomes slightly darker, indicating the tall frame of a carnivore, coming closer.

“Legoshi!” Tem says, standing up and running forward in relief.

“Louis!” Haru says at the same time, following Tem.

They both crash into the shape, wrapping their arms around its legs just as the light turns back on. Tem looks up and sees Bill standing in great surprise with his hands raised so as not to touch either herbivore.

“Uh, no?” The tiger says, and both Tem and Haru hurriedly let go of him.

“Sorry,” Tem says quickly, cringing at his mistake.

“I mean, if you want to hug Legoshi as well, he’s the one who got me to come with him,” Bill says, turning slightly to reveal the hybrid standing awkwardly a few metres away.

“Haru!” Louis’ distinct voice in full acting projection cuts around the corner of one of the stalls, quickly proceeded by the buck himself sporting mud on both knees and one grazed elbow. His eyes widen in relief as he sees Haru, and runs towards her. “Haru! I’m so glad you’re safe, I tried following Bill and Legoshi but I fell over in the dark.”

Tem looks at Bill’s slack-jawed surprise as the star actor pulls what he probably thinks of as the school bicycle into a fervent and very emotional hug. Then, his gaze slides back to Legoshi. Or at least, where Legoshi was.

Sidestepping the tiger, Tem runs a few steps and looks around urgently, seeing a furry tail disappearing into the crowd formed by animals cautiously dispersing back across the festival grounds. The alpaca runs forward and barges past an antelope so as to not lose sight of the hybrid, and almost trips over. There is a sense of urgency within Tem as he dodges people in the crowd, like if he doesn’t catch up with Legoshi now, he’ll slip through his fingers forever.

Ignoring complaints and “watch it!”s from the animals he shoves past, Tem finally manages to get through the press of bodies, and can see his target walking back towards the rest of the Drama club. Pushing his screaming muscles for one last burst, Tem runs forward and grabs Legoshi’s hand.

The hybrid turns around with a look of surprise and immediately takes a step backwards from Tem. “I’m sorry, I uh, I’m trying to stay away like you asked, so I got Bill to come with me when I looked for you,” Legoshi says, pulling his hands up and away from Tem.

“Legoshi, shut up,” Tem says in a hard tone of voice that commands instant obedience from the mostly-canid. “I need to apologise to you,” he adds quickly. “I shouldn’t have said all of what I did yesterday, and I’ve been dealing with lots of horrible things inside me that’s made me do some really dumb stuff.”

“Uh, same,” Legoshi murmurs.

“Look, can we talk? Properly talk, I mean?” Tem asks desperately. “Tomorrow I mean, when we’ve both slept.”

“Yeah, I’d like that,” Legoshi says, his tail wagging.

“Okay, see you then,” Tem says, and walks away before he can go back on what he said. ‘How the fuck am I going to talk about all this?’ He thinks to himself, shaking his head. ‘I really don’t know, but I have to try.’

Chapter Text

~~ Riz ~~

“Are you sure you’re well enough to come with us?” Legoshi asks, worriedly.

“Yes, Legoshi, I feel a lot better,” Riz replies for the fourth time, rolling his eyes slightly at Legoshi’s insistence.

“You don’t feel any pain at all?” the hybrid asks sceptically.

“I basically stayed in bed and did nothing yesterday, if I stayed there for another day, I’d lose my mind.” Riz’s voice is joking, but also retains a decent edge of seriousness.

“Alright! Just as long as you’re sure!” Legoshi says placatingly.

Riz doesn’t say anything for a while as they keep walking across campus to meet the rest of the Drama club at the gates, waiting for Legoshi to ask for a fifth time. Astonishingly, it seems like his boyfriend has managed to get the message to stop being so neurotic about his migraine. It’s sweet in a way, but can also be mildly annoying as well.

“Besides, it’s the only night of the festival, and there’ll be the candle-lighting ceremony,” Riz adds, rewarding Legoshi for his restraint with another conversation topic.

“Candle lighting?” Legoshi asks, mystified.

“Yeah, they say that the couple that puts a lit candle into the meteor will be together forever,” Riz explains with a smile. ‘What do you think about that?”

“That sounds…” Legoshi murmurs, looking down as they walk and eyes slowly widening. “Wow…” he finally breathes.

“You might want to do that?” Riz asks gently, smiling all the more for Legoshi’s whole-body reaction.

“I would be honoured,” Legoshi replies earnestly.

“Alright loser, less medieval knight,” Riz says, but internally melts at the outpouring of feeling in Legoshi’s usually unemotive eyes. He waves to the rest of the Drama club as they get nearer, and squeezes Legoshi’s hand affectionately. “You said that Tem wanted to talk?” 

“Yeah, I think he’ll probably want to talk to you as well afterwards, and then maybe we’ll all talk together?” Legoshi says, clearly not quite sure himself.

“Sounds good to me, what do you want to talk about with him?” Riz asks.

“I think I just want to stay friends with him. After everything that’s happened, I miss us being friends like that.”

“You know it can’t go back to how it was, right?” Riz asks gently. A vision of Legoshi drenched in gore swims into his mind. “That doesn’t mean it can’t be good, but we can’t go back.”

“Yeah, I know,” Legoshi sighs. “I think I still have a crush on him,” the hybrid admits shyly. “But I don’t want that to be the main thing that drives me, otherwise I’ll just be selfish again.”

Riz smiles proudly at his boyfriend. “You’ve come a long way, pup,” he says before reaching over and ruffling the fur between Legoshi’s ears. 

When they finally catch up to the rest of the club, the two carnivores swap to more everyday topics of conversation, and Riz gets caught up on the gossip that he missed from a single day of not being part of club activities. There’s a surprising amount of it, and he notices that Bill is maintaining a conspicuous distance from him. When news of Legoshi causing a ‘gay awakening’ in the tiger gets brought up, the distance increases.

‘I guess he’s probably scared I’ll be jealous or something,’ Riz thinks to himself with an internal chuckle. ‘Legoshi does seem to be collecting other carnivores who lust after him, I bet Bill can’t commit though, he’s a bit of a fuckboy.’

The thought of his boyfriend being in relationships with other people like Jack, or even potentially having something with Bill, combined with the brief talk about Tem, makes Riz ponder his own love-life. He’s never really been one for casual hookups; there was already a lot of charged emotions between him and Legoshi before they kissed, and Jack is important to Legoshi, and, well, a lot of fun. The only other people he can remember having actual crushes on are his friend when he was nine, a specific member of an all-bear boy-band, and Tem.

‘How did that start?’ Riz muses, casting his mind back to when they first talked. It was in the Drama club changing rooms, and Riz had been pulling his club shirt on having gotten there early. He hadn’t said anything to Tem when he entered, consciously not drawing attention to himself as a large breed carnivore in a room with no one except a smaller herbivore.

“Wow! Your muscles are really impressive!” Tem had said out of the blue. “That’s kind of terrifying!”

Riz had almost flinched at the words, just more of what he’d heard his whole life, but Tem’s tone had stopped him. It wasn’t scared, it was intrigued. Tem had looked right at Riz, a carnivore who knew he was scary and spent so much time trying to hide that under his gentle-giant affect, and had seen through everything. But the most important part was that he also hadn’t looked away. He had been intrigued, almost enthusiastic.

‘I guess, at the time, it felt like he was the only person I knew who saw the real me and accepted me for it,’ Riz thinks to himself as they load onto the train.

To Riz’s surprise, Bill still joins him and Legoshi on the carnivore-only carriage, but they’re also joined by Aoba and Tao.

‘It’s almost like that day we ended up in the Black Market. But this time, if that happens again, I can’t but feel like it’ll be alright.’

~~ Tem ~~

‘Okay, it’s gonna happen today, don’t panic, don’t freak out, just keep potting begonias, that’ll help.’ Tem repeats the internal monologue again and again like a personal mantra, trying and failing to distract himself with measuring the right amounts of soil into a pot, tipping it out and trying again when he fails.

“You know, you don’t have to redo the whole thing when you make a mistake,” Haru says in a slightly sardonic tone. “I’ve been waiting for you to give me that pot for five minutes.”

“I want to get it right first time,” Tem begins. “Otherwise, what’s the poi–” he stops, and looks at the other herbivore.

Haru’s eyebrows raise, looking between him and the pot currently getting its fifth go through of potting mix pointedly. “Something on your mind?” She asks.

“Oh fuck off,” Tem says dismissively. “That’s bullshit, I know what you’re getting at and that’s bullshit, that’s so cliché, what am I, a picture book for a psychologist’s kid?”

“Just saying,” Haru teases, taking the slightly overfilled pot from him and scooping out a handful of soil. “Think of your life like this pot, dear child,” she says, straining her voice to sound old and wizened. “You can take from it and put into it, but it is in the nature of things to be imperfect! Become like the wise begonia, and grow regardless of if your soil is ‘perfect’ or not,” Haru concludes, holding one finger in the air and pushing it unceremoniously into the dirt. “Blegh,” she adds, poking her tongue out.

“Thank you, oh wise one,” Tem replies, rolling his eyes. “And when will you be wanting your haemorrhoid cream?”

“Right after you make me some proper food, you damn whippersnapper!” Haru laughs, bringing a smile to Tem’s face and dispelling some of the tension in his body.

“Thanks,” Tem says more quietly.

“No problem, I am very wise you know, being a senior and everything.” Haru looks up from the pot and perks her ears up. “Oh, speak of the devil,” she says. “You want to talk now or do you want to do your dumb anxious baby thing of running around behind the stall for a little bit?”

“Fuck you,” Tem says, disappearing out the back curtain of their market stall.

“Dumb anxious baby then, got it,” Haru says as he leaves.

Tem flattens his back on the rough bark of a cherry blossom tree while he hears Haru talking enthusiastically to Legoshi and Riz, and it seems like a few other people. ‘Bill, maybe? That was definitely Aoba,’ he thinks to himself. ‘Stop! This is the time for you to get your head on straight and calm your nerves, not think about other random shit! Fuck, I feel really sick, am I going to throw up? If I think about throwing up too much, will it happen? Like fucking manifesting or something? STOP.’

Tem slaps himself lightly on both sides of his face several times and tries calm his racing heart. He closes his eyes tight and grips the tree bark, finally becoming grounded by holding onto the solid, rough material.

“Five things I can hear,” he whispers to himself. “Haru, people setting up the festival, Dom yelling at Fudge, generators for the foodstalls, the wind through the trees. Four things I can smell.”

As Tem works his way through each sense, his heart steadily stops pounding in his ears and moves to his chest where it should be.

“Okay, this is it, you want to try again, that’s the main thing, you can get over the meat thing, you have for Riz kind of, but you can try harder! And Legoshi wants to talk as well, so it’ll probably go well if we both want to listen and talk.” Tem mutters his thoughts aloud until he feels like he can’t justify putting them off any longer. “Oh wait, I forgot a sense,” he says in a more normal tone of voice. “Duh, sight!”

When Tem opens his eyes, he almost does a double take, as if he’s seeing things. He blinks hard, but the tall, terrifying lion in front of him remains as solid as anything. 

He'ss wearing a tailored suit, and looking at Tem curiously. He bends down to be on eye-level with the alpaca.

“Still here,” the lion says in a sing-song tone, and lunges forward.

~~ Legoshi ~~

“Should I just go back there?” Legoshi asks nervously, tugging on his ears slightly. “I don’t want to push it,” he adds, looking helplessly at Haru and Riz. When Riz shrugs and looks at Haru, the rabbit rolls her eyes.

“He’s probably just thinking too much about it, kinda like someone I know,” she says, looking pointedly at Legoshi. “If you’re really anxious about it, I’ll go first.”

“Thank you,” Legoshi says gratefully, and follows behind the herbivore.

“Tem! Get out here!” Haru says a little sharply as she leads Legoshi around the back of the stall. “You better not be hiding behind a tree or something!”

The fur on the back of Legoshi’s neck prickles uncomfortably, and his stomach starts to tighten, like someone is pulling on a garotte tied around his guts. He cautiously removes his mask and tastes the air, wrinkling his nose at the smells his tongue brings back into his mouth.

There’s the unmistakable floral taste of the wool conditioner that Tem uses, but it’s an undertone compared to the overpowering scent of cigarette smoke and lions. Male lions, that all stink of meat.

Legoshi’s skin goes cold, and a distant ringing begins in his ears, growing closer and louder by the second. As he steps forward, he tastes the air again, closing his eyes to focus on pinpointing the different smells. Walking with furrowed brows and tripping once on a stone, Legoshi lets his nose and forked tongue guide him. He can feel the rough leaves of ferns brush against his trousers as he nears Tem’s most recent scent. When Legoshi opens his eyes, his gaze falls on a single shoe, and a card dropped beside it.

The ringing in Legoshi’s ears is almost deafening, and his hands shake slightly as he picks up both items and walks out of the undergrowth. He can see both Riz and Haru in his peripheral vision, but he can’t quite hear what they’re saying. Riz gently takes the card from his hand.

Legoshi stays staring at the shoe.

‘He’s been kidnapped,’ he thinks to himself dully. ‘He’s been kidnapped by lions and now he’s going to die.’

“Oh no,” Riz says, his voice cutting through the ringing and bringing Legoshi back to the present. “Not them.”

“Who?” Haru asks.

“The Shishigumi, they’re a gang of lions in the Black Market,” Riz explains grimly, turning the card over and over in his hands. “They leave these calling cards as a way to tell whoever finds them to back off and not investigate. They’re probably taking Tem to the Black Market right now.”

“We can’t let that happen,” Legoshi says. “We have to call the police.”

“Yeah! Let’s do that!” Haru agrees.

Riz’s expression drops, and he looks between Legoshi and Haru with a wretched expression. “The cops don’t go in there,” he says, voice breaking slightly. “The Black Market officially doesn’t exist. Even if we call them, they won’t do anything.”

The now-familiar taste of bitter venom fills Legoshi’s mouth as Riz’s words sink in. They seep through his brain and down his spine, filling his body up with a cacophony of emotions that writhe and scream around each other like a mating ball. 

Anger entwines around despair and births rage. Rage tangles itself with confusion and spawns brilliant neon green streaks of disgust at the state of the world.

Venom drips from the hybrid’s lips and falls onto the grass where it sizzles.

“We need Louis,” Legoshi says, cutting through the argument that Riz and Haru have been having.

“What?” They both ask.

“Louis, he’s going to be the next Beastar, he has a reputation that we don’t, he knows important people, if anyone can get the police to save Tem, it’s him,” Legoshi explains, already striding away and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Legoshi, even then, I don’t know if they will,” Riz says as he catches up.

“So what, I do nothing?” Legoshi asks without stopping.

“I didn’t say that, I’m just saying that we might need to do this ourselves.”

“Louis!” Legoshi barks, standing tall and walking in long footfalls that has other animals scrambling to get out of his way.

“What is it?” The buck asks suspiciously, looking from Legoshi to Riz and then down to Haru, who’s trying to catch her breath.

“Tem’s been kidnapped,” Legoshi says.

Louis’ eyes widen momentarily, and he grabs Legoshi’s arm to pull him further away from the public view. When they are sufficiently far from being overheard, he turns and fixes the hybrid with a hard stare. “Explain,” he orders.

“I was going to talk with Tem, but when we looked for him, we just found his shoe and this card,” Legoshi begins, urging Riz to hand over the card. “Apparently it’s a calling card for a Black Market gang, the Shishigumi, and Tem’s probably being taken there right now to be devoured!”

“Keep your voice down!” Louis half-whispers sharply before taking the card and looking at it critically. “We can’t cause a scene right here before the festival starts, and I’m generously ignoring how you know all this about the Black Market and it’s various gangs, by the way.”

“Are you kidding me, Louis?!” Haru almost shouts. “Who gives a shit about how they know about the Black Market? One of my best friends has been kidnapped to be eaten alive, this isn’t the time to get into that!”

“Right, sorry,” Louis apologises, and his aire of superior bravado drains slightly. “Of course, I’ll take this to the mayor right now.”

As the buck walks off, Riz looks down at Haru appreciatively. “You have a way with him, don’t you?” He says with a grin.

“Oh shut up,” Haru replies, the ghost of a smile flitting over her features before being replaced with a more somber expression. “Let’s see if he gets anywhere with the mayor.”

~~ Riz ~~

“It’ll be okay,” Riz says, rubbing Legoshi’s shoulder with one hand as the hybrid crunches down on an anti-venom tablet. “Whatever happens, we’ll get him back.”

“I know,” Legoshi replies, sitting stock still on the steps outside the mayor’s office, just off the festival grounds.

‘He’s not even fidgeting,’ Riz observes internally, not sure how to react to this new facet of his boyfriend. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this focused.’

The bear’s thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the door behind them opening and slamming shut with audible anger. A string of expletives follow the sound, and Riz is surprised to see Louis being manhandled out of the building by a large gorilla security officer before getting shoved away where he lands on his backside.

Instead of exploding like Riz expects, however, Louis takes a second to quell his emotions, stands up, brushes himself off, and walks over with head held high like he wasn’t just thrown on his ass in public.

“Do you know how to get to the Shishigumi base?” Louis asks Riz, voice hard and practical.

“Oh, uh, no,” Riz replies, standing up quickly and feeling like he’s a cadet in the army whose drill sergeant just walked up to him. “Talking to the mayor didn’t work?

“No, the fucking bastard said that he’s ‘worked too hard to raise the profile of lions to let a gang ruin that’, he even threatened me,” Louis sneers derisively. “Do you know who will know where they are? We’re going to have to do this ourselves,” he presses Riz.

“Maybe?” Riz says. “But he’s my uncle, and I think he’ll kill me if he finds out what we’re going to do–” he catches himself and frowns. “What do you mean ‘we’?” He asks. “No way I’m letting a herbivore classmate walk into the Black Market.”

“Oh really?” Louis asks with a glint in his eye. “I have a gun on me right now, do you want me to shoot you in the leg and go there myself?”

Legoshi lets out a hiss at the threat, and Louis rolls his eyes.

“Don’t worry, Legoshi, it wasn’t serious,” the buck adds.

“Even with a gun, I don’t know if you’ll be safe in there, Louis,” Haru says doubtfully.

“I’ve seen what carnivores can do, I know more than most, in fact,” Louis says cryptically. “Besides, I’ll have these two with me, won’t I?”

“Yeah, you will,” Riz confirms, shoulders sagging slightly.

“I know someone,” Legoshi says, pulling an old flip-phone out of his back pocket.

“Really?” Louis asks, one eyebrow raised in surprise. “I didn’t take you for someone who traipses around the meat markets, Legoshi.”

“I’m not,” the hybrid says with a shrug. “My family is, though.”

~~ Legoshi ~~

“Why do you have a fuckin’ herbie with you?” Savon asks with barely restrained disdain. “You said we had to meet up, and I left my patrol for this, so I expect a Rex-damn good explanation.”

“The Shishigumi kidnapped one of our friends, and I have to get him back,” Legoshi explains simply, ignoring the crack at herbivores. “Louis said he’d shoot me if I didn’t let him come along,” he adds, gesturing behind him.

“He did? Ha!” Savon laughs, a rare smile gracing his usually expressionless features. “You’ve got spunk, kid, I’ll give you that,” he says to the buck. “The Shishigumi, huh? I’ve got some old blood debts to settle with the current leader, but I’m not about to go starting a war between Gumis for some herbie kid I don’t know.”

Legoshi frowns, but keeps his mouth shut while he thinks. ‘He helped Gouhin out with me because he owed him a favour, he must be looking for something in return, even if he won’t say it.’

“The Dokugumi are mercenaries, right?” Louis asks. “My father has employed you a few times to ‘remove’ business rivals. I could get you some more of that, if that would help.”

“Spoken like a true businessman,” Savon says appreciatively. “I thought I recognised you, Louis the red deer.”

“What I join the Dokugumi?” Legoshi asks.

“What?!” Riz exclaims. “No! Legoshi, you can’t do that!”

“Why not?” Legoshi replies. “I know that you’d do it for Tem, so what’s wrong with me doing it?”

“You don’t know what life in the Black Market is like,” Riz insists.

“I can learn,” Legoshi says grimly. “It’s where all carnivores end up, anyway, isn’t it?”

“Not to interrupt your little lover’s quarrel, but we should get going sooner rather than later if you want to get your friend before he gets devoured,” Savon says casually, lighting a cigarette and puffing on it.

Legoshi stares into Riz’s face with hard eyes. “Then let’s go,” he says over his shoulder.

“Alrighty,” the komodo says, and blows a plume of smoke over Louis. When the buck coughs and complains, he shrugs. “Can’t have your herbie stink giving us away before we get there, can we?”

Chapter Text

~~ Tem ~~

“You snatched a kid? There’s barely anything on it.”

“Hey fuck you, it’s hard finding pure white animals these days, especially when they all live in that weird gated community uptown.”

“You could have at least grabbed something bigger, I busted my ass causing the blackout and you did shit all. And what is it, a sheep or something? Who wants to chew through all that wool, bleugh.”

“You want to fucking go? We can go right now if you don’t like what I got for Chief.”

‘I am such a fucking moron,’ Tem thinks to himself in that slightly detached way that brains do when they find themselves in bodies that are in mortal peril. ‘I couldn’t just stay closer to the stall, no, I had to go into the woods, and now these lions are talking about how to eat me. I’m scared, but I’m not freaking out, weird.’

The black bag that has been covering Tem’s face is suddenly removed, revealing the leering faces of three huge lions, all wearing suits. They seem to be in some kind of huge lounge room with decadent chandeliers hanging above several couches. The lions watch Tem as he surveys the room with glints in their eyes that make his body tense so hard it’s painful. 

‘Oh wait, I am freaking out,’ he adds mentally as his heart begins to beat faster and faster. ‘Am I going to piss myself? That would be so embarrassing, but at least it might make me taste worse.’

“Listen up,” the middle lion says to Tem, looming over him. “We’re in the Black Market now, and you are food, so don’t even think of trying to run away. Those are genuine leather couches, and I don’t think you want to get made into furniture.

Not knowing what else to do, and unsure if his bladder will give way if he does anything else, Tem nods mechanically.

“Good, it’s nice to finally have meat that knows it,” the lion says with a cruel grin. “Now, I gotta check if you’re white all over, so hold still. Our boss is a gourmet, you know, nothing but pure white satisfies his tastes.” 

He leans over and reaches out with one hand to Tem’s belt.

Still moving on automatic, Tem throws as powerful a punch as he can muster, and his knuckles scream in pain as his fist makes contact with the lion’s cheekbone. On its way by, Tem’s hand grazes against the lion’s fangs and a long slash opens on the back of one finger.

“Whoa! Meat’s got spirit!” The lion on the right exclaims with some excitement.

“It fucking got you Raksho!” The one on the left laughs as the middle lion recovers from the punch.

“You little fucker,” he growls, and Tem stumbles as he takes a step back away from the now aggressive lion.

‘If he attacks me right now, I’m definitely pissing myself, please don’t attack me.’

Before he can be eviscerated though, the sound of wood on wood echoes through the room, and the lion’s body freezes while his eyes roll up to look behind Tem.

“What are you doing to my meal?” A grizzled voice asks.

~~ Riz ~~

The journey through the market is silent and tense, and the sun has well and truly set by the time they all reach the Shishigumi hideout. It seems to be a large mansion behind high stone walls built in a traditional style he’s only seen in a few other places. Taken by how old the place looks, Riz hesitates and puts one hand against the wall. Rain begins to fall as he looks at the old stones, muffling the sounds of the nearby market under its blanket.

‘It looks the same age as the temple back at my grandparents’ house,’ he thinks to himself. ‘I wonder if it’s older than the city, I wonder what it used to be before it became a gang hideout.’

“Hey, bear boy.” Savon’s hiss cuts through the rain, and it really is a hiss. “Now’s not the time to fuck around.”

Riz turns back to face Savon as the rain begins to fully pour, soaking him to the skin under his fur. After a few more seconds of quiet movement, they come to a stop, crouching against the wall.

Peeking around the corner of the arched gateway, Riz can see a few oil lamps lit above the doorway to the mansion, plus a few along the path. Each one casts a halo of feeble yellow light into the gloom, just enough to distract the night vision of any approaching hostile carnivores while not giving enough for an unlikely herbivore assault to be able to see.

The shadows the lamps cast are shapeless and flickering, turning every branch into a reaching hand and every ornament a dangling foot. 

Riz looks above him at one of the gate decorations, and then looks closer.

A sharp intake of air from behind him makes Riz turn back to see Louis looking up, a look of undeniable fear in his large brown eyes.

“Those are…’ he breathes.

“Warnings,” Savon finishes grimly, glancing up at the half-dozen corpses hanging from the gate.

“But that one’s an otter,” Louis says, staring with confusion at the nearest half-rotting corpse, one eye having been lost to the wind and rain. “They’re carnivores.”

“So?” Savon snorts. “It’s the Black Market. It can be drugs, gambling, debts, or just bad luck, but even carnivores can become prey here, your friends know that better than you do, herbie.” The komodo gestures with his chin towards Riz and Legoshi as he speaks.

Before Louis can ask, Riz pulls back from the archway and turns to the group in a huddle.

“So what’s the plan of attack?” He asks. “My uncle told me there’s about forty lions in the gang, right? We don’t want to try fight through all of them.”

“Good thinking, herbie here won’t be useful for shit until we get indoors without any light for him to shoot at,” Savon agrees.

“I have a name you know,” Louis says icily, pulling out his pistol and checking the action.

“Don’t give a shit, tell me if you survive the night,” Savon says easily, ignoring the buck’s indignant huff.

“What do you think, Legoshi?” Riz asks, turning to his boyfriend. 

“What?” Legoshi asks, not whispering as he tears his gaze away from the corpses.

Riz’s chest tenses slightly as he sees the slightly glazed expression on Legoshi’s face. He looks from the hybrid to Louis, noting the slight expression of fear on the buck’s face. 

“Hey,” he says, shaking Legoshi’s shoulder slightly. “You can’t save Tem if you lose control.”

Riz watches as Legoshi thickly swallows the wad of drool he knows the otter’s body has elicited.

“I don’t want to use my venom on these guys,” he says hoarsely. “They don’t deserve it.”

“Good, you’re right about that,” Savon agrees with a nod. “Lions have strong arms and deadly claws. Legoshi, you don’t know how to fight with your talons yet, so you should go straight for a bite to the neck, I reckon your bite strength is off the charts. Riz, you look pretty strong, you should focus on throwing ‘em around.”

“And how were you thinking of getting around this?” An unfamiliar voice asks from behind the group, followed by the sound of the safety catch on a pistol being released.

~~ Legoshi ~~

The fur on the back of Legoshi’s neck tries to raise as he slowly turns around, but it’s too sodden with rain by this point to move. Just the sight of the lion makes his fangs itch, especially with the tantalising smell of carnivore meat hanging just above him. The stench of rotting flesh issues forth from the otter’s corpse, but it doesn’t seem to dissuade the hunger that roils in Legoshi’s stomach.

It’s a hunger that’s been building back up inside him for weeks, rearing its head and sniffing the air since his last ‘meal’.

‘Don’t lose control, you can’t let yourself lose control again,’ Legoshi thinks to himself. ‘There’s no telling what’ll happen if you do, and you can’t put Riz or Louis in danger.’

“A bear, a wolf, and a deer walk into the Black Market,” the lion sneers, gesturing to them with his gun. “What the fuck is this, the start to a bad joke?”

“We’re here to–” Louis begins cooly.

“Shut the fuck up, meat, and if you move that gun even a centimetre, I’ll shoot you first,” the lion snaps. “I’m not too well informed on all of the Shishigumi’s enemies, but we don’t allow trespassers, so I think I’ll kill the mutt first.”

Legoshi holds his hands up, but his mind races trying to think clearly about how to take the lion down while his body is telling him to pounce.

“We’ve got a good reason to be here!” Legoshi says, forcing on a bright expression. “I’m sure we could talk it out!”

‘I’m shit at lying, but maybe I can confuse him enough for Savon to take him down,’ he thinks to himself. ‘Actually, where has Savon gone? I can’t smell him, and this lion didn’t mention a komodo dragon.’ 

As Legoshi strains his nose and his tongue flicks out, he catches something familiar coming from the lion in front of him. 

It’s sweet, powerfully so, and pungent in the best way; it’s the kind of scent that Legoshi feels a canine instinct to roll in. The scent lands on Legoshi’s tongue like honeyed sunlight, warm and inviting, and it makes his stomach growl. To his surprise, it lacks the sour overtones from carnivore blood that usually wakes his appetite, but it is still incredibly appealing.

Legoshi tries to run through every scent he has memorised as quickly as possible, but he soon arrives at a single, terrible conclusion. As he opens his mouth to speak, Legoshi finds himself loosening the iron grip on his muscles he has been maintaining since the lion confronted them.

“What did you do to him?” Legoshi asks in a growl. 

“What? Oh! You must be that sheep’s friend!” The lion replies with a laugh. “Let me guess? You idiots are here to save him? Good luck doing that before Chief chows down on him.” The lion pauses to flash a grin. “He does like to play with his food though, the adrenaline makes them taste better.”

Not caring about the gun anymore and running on pure instinct, Legoshi bursts forth, dropping low and to the side with reptilian grace. As he reaches the lion, he grabs the gun with one hand and twists it towards the other carnivore’s head before pulling down on the trigger.

The explosion of the gun makes one ear ring, but Legoshi powers through and pins the lion to the ground.

“MY FUCKING EAR!” the other carnivore screams.

Legoshi grabs the lion by the ruined stump and slams his head into the concrete, rage and murderous intent flowing through him. The thud of bone connecting with the ground feels good as it reverberates up through his hand, and it reminds Legoshi of his fight with Bill. That was also with a feline over a herbivore, but this has much higher stakes.

“You touched him, didn’t you?” Legoshi hisses, letting a string of drool fall from his forked tongue onto the lion’s face. “I can smell his blood on you.”

“No! Chief did!” The lion blubbers, desperately trying to placate the hybrid.

‘How dare you touch him, how dare you even look at him,’ Legoshi thinks as red begins to press on his vision. ‘He’s mine, Tem is my prey.’

‘Wait. What?’

The thought comes straight from the darkest part of Legoshi, and he hesitates. The red recedes, and so too does his rage.

Before it can be replaced by self-disgust, however, the lion attempts to take advantage of the momentary relief by punching Legoshi heavily on the jaw.

The hybrid falls backward, but Riz’s massive fist connects with the lion in return, causing him to stumble back in a daze. Another gunshot rings out, and blood gushes out from the hole that punches into the lion’s chest. It covers them in a glorious spray, and the sound of the rain is augmented for a few seconds with the last gasps of the dying carnivore.

“Should have just bitten him,” Savon’s voice filters through as he steps out from a shadow behind where the lion stood. “Why didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t,” Legoshi says, slightly stunned and looking back at Louis with concern. The buck still has his pistol raised, but he looks a lot calmer than Legoshi expected.

“You’ll need to, eventually,” Savon says, and holds out a hand to help Legoshi to his feet.

“Where the FUCK were you?!” Riz roars. “As soon as he showed up, you disappeared!”

“You really think I’m gonna walk in there with three untrained kids if I don’t know if twp of them can kill someone threatening them?” Savon counters, standing up straight and reaching Riz’s eye-height. “I didn’t have to worry about my nephew, you and I both know that.”

“I don’t want to kill people, is that so bad?” Riz growls, looking at Legoshi for support.

“It’s not,” Legoshi assures, stepping in between the two carnivores. “Let’s just get in without killing as many as we can and get Tem, and then get out.”

As Riz and Savon settle down, Legoshi turns back to the mansion so that Riz can’t see his face. In truth, the prospect of further violence sends a shiver of anticipation up Legoshi’s back, but he doesn’t want his boyfriend to see how it only excites his hunger. 

He swallows another mouthful of drool, and steps through the gate.

~~ Tem ~~

‘Well, I may as well say my last words, seeing as how I’m about to die. I won’t have a chance to write it down, so thinking it will have to do. I’m naked, I’m scared, I’m humiliated, and I’m about to get eaten by some creepy old man Gumi boss who keeps muttering about how my meat is ‘perfect’. Maybe this is what I deserve for being a pervert myself, or maybe this is just how it was always going to end up. Maybe it wouldn’t have been this lion who would eat me, but getting devoured seems like it was always in the wings for me. No matter how much time I tried to stay on stage and making other people happy, I’ve always had to face up to it. After all, I was meant to be devoured a long time ago.’

Tem’s breathing stays oddly calm as the old lion’s claws spread the wool all over his body to inspect the skin beneath. His heart pounds, and he can feel himself sweating profusely, but his mind can’t seem to stay on this moment. Instead, it casts itself over images of his past, people and moments swimming in and out of focus.

‘No one ever asked why I was scouted for the Drama club, they were just happy for this wool to be on stage and catch everyone’s eyes. When Duncan was devoured, no one asked why I stayed in my dorm when everyone else went back home. I guess they couldn’t have cared that much. I’ve tried so hard to be friends with as many people as possible, to see the best in everyone, and where did that get me? No matter how much I wanted people to see what I saw in them, I’m still about to die with nothing to show for it.’

~~ Legoshi ~~

WHAM

Legoshi’s fist collides with a nearby lion’s face as Riz fields two others, breaking his eye socket and staining the fur on Legoshi’s knuckles with blood. He yowls in pain, but isn’t quite fast enough to stop the hybrid from grabbing the collar of his suit and bodily throwing him over his shoulders behind him.

With the feline barrier out of the way, and Riz knocking the two other lions senseless by slamming their heads together, Legoshi advances. 

He wants to run ahead and search frantically for Tem, but he can’t. He can’t let himself lose control like that, no matter how much blood is in the air. Instead, with Riz by his side, Legoshi moves only as fast as Louis can keep up with one hand on the hybrid’s shoulder so he doesn’t get lost in the dark.

The trio make it to the mansion doors in one last dash, but immediately have to duck behind a pillar as three lions inside open fire with their pistols. Louis releases Legoshi’s shoulder and holds his own pistol in a surprisingly proficient manner.

“I need a distraction so I can see where to aim at,” the buck says through gritted teeth as a bullet ricochets into the plaster near his head. 

“Got it,” Legoshi says, and dives out of his cover in a mad dash, digging his talons into the wooden floor to give himself more leverage to throw himself forward, pistol shots following him. Pain blossoms in the end of his tail as a bullet goes straight through it, but he grits his teeth and continues to the other side of the main hall.

A burst of three shots come from where he recently left Louis, and the lions that were shooting at them start screaming expletives. Legoshi looks around to see Riz and Louis running towards the gunmen and knocking them unconscious, either with huge fist or pistol whip.

“Hey mutt,” a voice growls behind Legoshi, followed by two heavy blows to his gut and cheek as he turns to face the lion.

The blows knock the air from Legoshi’s lungs, and he stumbles backwards until his back hits a pillar. The lion continues his onslaught, pausing only to reach into his pocket momentarily, fist coming back out with a set of brass knuckles over his fingers. Even when he manages to block, the metal cuts into Legoshi’s muscles with an incredible force. Seeing no other option, the hybrid goes limp against the pillar and sags down.

“Not so tough now, are ya?” The lion sneers, hauling Legoshi up by the front of his collar. “Your surprise attack might have worked at first, but there’s nothing a bunch of kids can do against the Shishigumi.”

A loud bang emanates from outside at the same time as a glaring flash lights up the ruined foyer. The lion yells in pain and closes his eyes for a moment at the flash, and Legoshi takes the opportunity to slam his head into the lion’s nose with a satisfying crunch.

Without waiting for a reaction, Legoshi grabs the lion by the mane rams his head into the pillar he was leaning against, knocking him out cold.

“It’s not just us,” Legoshi mutters breathlessly.

Ignoring the many complaints from his body, Legoshi leans down and holds up the lion’s hand to sniff at it. The honey scent of Tem’s wool and a flick of the herbivore’s blood enters Legoshi’s body in a wave of heat, filling the hybrid’s body up and urging him forward.

His head whips around as he hears Louis open fire again, and he quickly runs to the stairway that the buck and Riz are slowly climbing. Tem’s scent hangs in the air, making Legoshi’s nose quiver and tongue flick incessantly in and out of his mouth. It’s not something so base as hunger that drives him forward, leaping over Louis’ shoulder in a moment of calm between gunshots, it’s something more. As Legoshi grapples a lion to the ground and knees him savagely between the legs, his body fills with the burning energy of the simple desire to see his friend once again.

“I can smell him, I know where he is!” Legoshi yells over his shoulder to Riz while trying to avoid getting gutted by the furious lion beneath him.

“Then go! Go now before it’s too late!” Riz roars, throwing a lion bodily into another, blood staining his face and arms from numerous cuts.

“We’ll catch up,” Louis shouts while firing steady shots down one hallway to prevent them being rushed.

Legoshi runs.

~~ Tem ~~

‘It’s over.’

“Mm, your skin is almost the same colour as your wool, perfectly pale and pink,” the Chief growls, now inspecting Tem’s chest and stomach. “The pink shows how your blood is rushing to your skin. Humiliation makes the meat taste better, and I intend on dining properly.”

‘Seventeen years of worthless life I clung to long after I was meant to. Why did I even bother?’

Tem casts his mind back, trying to find reasons why he didn’t just throw himself off of the Gardening club roof that day. Tripping over the flowerpot definitely helped delay his attempt and flight, but so did other things.

‘Haru, you were there for me, and then I went and caught feelings for the carnivore that almost ate you. Legoshi, why is it that, even though you try so hard to be kind and unobtrusive, you keep making things so complicated.’

The old lion’s claws pull at Tem’s wool like he’s testing the tearing point of fabric, which he probably is. His fingers move delicately, deftly, and Tem can’t help but think about Legoshi’s talons.

‘They’re almost the same. Dangerous, sharp. Rex, Legoshi’s claws are objectively more dangerous, way longer and made for gutting rather than holding in place. But they’re still different. When Legoshi touched my wool, it was tender, hesitant. He didn’t want to hurt me, and I don’t think I want to be hurt anymore.’

Tem looks around the huge room as the Chief rambles to himself, a testament to the decadence of its original owner and debauchery of its current resident. The walls are decorated with trophies taken from former enemies, an old fashioned sword rests above a fireplace, and the couches really are made of leather. It’s probably meant to be intimidating and strike fear in whoever enters, but in a moment of clarity, all Tem can see is gaudy trappings.

“Well, sorry to ruin your meal,” Tem says, cutting through the lion’s mumbling and catching him off guard. “But I’m not humiliated. I’m not afraid.”

In one movement, Tem steps back and plants a powerful kick at the lion’s face. He feels a genuine smile of satisfaction come to his face as the Chief’s jaw snaps shut from the force of the kick, and he grabs his shirt off the ground to cover himself up at least somewhat.

“You’re not scary!” Tem jeers. “You’re pathetic! With your big house and big couches, which by the way, fucking reek, I bet you think you’re sooo regal, but I know both carnivores and herbivores ten times more regal than you. You’re just a vain, arrogant loser who thinks hurting people makes you strong.”

Tem winks in the most infuriating way he can muster.

“If you eat me now, I’ll kick and fight you all the way down, I promise.”

The Chief pounces.

~~ Legoshi ~~

Tem’s scent traces golden lines in the air that illuminates the hallway, gracing the place with its undeserved presence and showing Legoshi to the one he is trying to save. He comes to a large door and opens it, rushing through into an impressively decorated room.

“No!” 

The sounds of Tem’s cries shoot through the air like a bolt of lightning and earths itself directly into Legoshi’s spine, jerking his head in their direction and shocking his legs into action.

Legoshi rounds the corner of one large couch on all fours, claws gouging through the surface of the varnished wood to slow him down. His body feels on fire, and the sight of the Chief lion pinning to the ground only stokes the flame from overflowing grate to raging inferno. 

Venom floods Legoshi’s mouth and his chest tightens with a torrential mix of fear and rage. He can feel himself losing control with the force of emotions, but for the first time in months, he doesn’t feel a wave of self-disgust rise with his instincts.

‘I’ve realised what my claws and fangs are for, Tem,’ he thinks as the Chief pulls back quickly from Tem and flexes his hands, brutal claws extending. ‘They’re not made for hurting my loved ones, and I’m not afraid of them anymore. They’re for you, Tem. They’re for protecting you, and Riz, and Haru, and everyone.’

‘I’m all yours.’

Legoshi pulls in a deep breath and roars.

The lion lunges forward, and Legoshi meets him halfway in a desperate grapple of claws on clothes. Fabric tears and Legoshi punches the other carnivore twice in the stomach to gain some distance from him. Although the hybrid has the energy of youth on his side, his opponent has more experience fighting dirty, and has eaten meat far more recently.

Legoshi tugs off his bloodstained shirt and throws it at Tem so the herbivore has more to cover himself with, leaving the carnivore with just a singlet on. Lines of scales show between his fur, along with several wounds that are sure to become scales in time, and Legoshi raises his hands in a taunting ‘come hither’ gesture that displays more of his hybrid features.

The Chief takes the opportunity to remove his glasses and carefully put them in a case on the couch.

“Something so impure is trying to take away my pure meal,” the older carnivore says as he starts to shrug off his suit jacket. “How poet– AGH!”

As soon as the lion’s arms are restrained by the jacket, Legoshi surges forward in a low sidewind, springing up when he gets close enough and tackling the lion to the ground. Legoshi lands heavily with his knees planted on the other carnivore’s chest, and he can feel several ribs pop underneath him on impact.

“You thought I was going to fight fair?” Legoshi growls, trying not to let the mouthful of venom slip out from between his lips. “You never gave any of those herbivores you devoured a fair chance.”

“What is this? You some kind of hero?” The Chief spits, ripping one arm free in a slashing moment that would have disemboweled Legoshi if not for the hybrid’s quick dodge backward. “Carnivores eat herbivores, that’s why we’re on top.”

“LEGOSHI,” Riz’s voice bellows out into the room, quickly followed by the bear and Louis before they slam the door shut behind them. “Louis, help him!” He shouts as something slams against the door from the outside.

As Legoshi falls into another skirmish with the Chief, both missing and hitting with their attacks in equal measure, Louis runs around the room to Tem’s side, gun pointed in the direction of the two brawling carnivores.

“Hold him still, Legoshi,” Louis says sharply.

“Where did you get a GUN, Louis?!” Tem asks.

“That’s what you’re surprised about?”

Legoshi momentarily loses his grip on the other carnivore’s hand, and shouts in pain as claws slash into his chest muscle, causing hot blood to seep into his singlet. Taking advantage of the situation, the lion kicks out with surprising agility and sends Louis’ pistol flying across the room.

The chaos of the room spins wildly around Legoshi as the blood loss and multiple blows to his head and body begin to catch up with him. All he knows in the moment is that he can’t let go of the Chief.

He must protect Tem.

Legoshi reaches out and sinks the talons on one hand into the lion’s shoulder as the other carnivore stands up, burying them deep into the meat with a satisfying sound. Instincts spark together in his brain, urging him to leap up and fill the lion with so much venom he melts.

‘What good am I if I can’t stop him,’ Legoshi thinks dully, rising to his knees and catching the lion’s hand before he can swipe. ‘These lions have all surrendered to their instincts, they’ve fallen so far and say they’re on top of the world. If I don’t do something different, I’m just the same.’

The Chief’s jaws bite down on Legoshi’s shoulder and pain blossoms like a branding iron, burning and insistent.

“Legoshi!” Tem screams.

‘Why are my claws sharp, if I can’t use them to protect what’s mine.”

Legoshi feels his instincts screaming and howling as the air fills with carnivore blood, both his and the Chief’s, but they are modified by an even deeper emotion. How dare this rabid animal try to take away what is Legoshi’s? How dare he threaten the things that the hybrid has worked so hard to guard?!

The protective anger bubbles up as Tem looks on with horror and fear, and it fills Leogshi with a rush of adrenaline that barrels down his veins like a runaway train car. An incredibly destructive force, all the more terrifying for its inevitability.

“Look away, Tem,” Legoshi growls.

Twisting in a way that only someone part-reptile can, Legoshi drops one knee beneath him and pulls the Chief lion down over his shoulder as the bulkier carnivore tips forward, centre of balance suddenly removed. His jaws unclamp from the hybrid’s shoulder as he falls, and he ends up with his broken nose slammed into the floor.

Blood pounds in Legoshi’s ears, and blood pounds in his vision. Finally, in a moment that feels transcendentally right, he pounces.

Talons slide between ribs and puncture lungs beneath the wall of muscle and bone, causing the lion to arch back in pain. As he does, Legoshi finally brings his jaw around and clamps down the other carnivore’s throat, biting down with all his strength. Sour blood fills his mouth, and it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. 

With his other hand, Legoshi buries his talons in the lion’s stomach and slashes up. Organs spill out onto the ground in a sickening sound that only excites the hybrid’s inner carnivore. The stink of gore and offal pierces through the musk of fear and adrenaline that hangs in the air, and Legoshi wrenches his head back.

As he tears the chunk of flesh from the Chief’s throat, blood fountains from the wound and soaks Legoshi to the skin in a murderous mirror of the rain outside. It goes up his nose, into his eyes, and sprays across the room.

Legoshi swallows the mouthful, and he finally feels his hunger abating. The spurt of blood quickly slows as the lion dies, but Legoshi can’t help but go for a second mouthful of gloriously sour flesh. It tears away as easily as anything, replacing the bitter venom with the pure ecstasy of victory. 

He can feel his instincts pushing him into a feeding frenzy, but Legoshi manages to pull himself back from the brink and doesn’t take a third bite. 

Looking over at Tem, the hybrid stands from his fallen opponent, gore-streaked and blood-soaked, and holds out one bloody hand.

“Will you run with us?” He asks. “I understand if you don’t want to after that.”

“Are you kidding me?” Tem replies, body shaking and voice quivering. “Of course I do.”

~~ Riz ~~

“WE NEED TO GO RIGHT NOW,” Riz shouts as he braces himself against another impact against the door.

Seeing Legoshi fight with the Gumi leader and not being able to wade in to help him was hell, and seeing his boyfriend actively devour someone brought up a whole raft of feelings, but right now he needs to focus on getting them out of here in one piece.

Louis approaches the door with his gun raised, having retrieved and reloaded it in the chaos. Riz notices how the buck keeps glancing back at the grisly scene behind him, and he can’t help but sympathise with the perturbed expression.

The dingo was bad enough, but seeing a murder committed in front of them all was somehow different.

“On three, open the door, and I’ll cover us as we run for it,” Louis says, voice cold and business-like. “Tem, Legoshi, get over here.”

Riz nods and steels himself for the coming firefight.

“Ready,” Tem says as he comes up beside Louis after pulling his clothes back on.

“One.”

“Two.”

Before he can get to three, a massive bang goes off from somewhere in the hallway beyond at the same time as another blinding flash of light filters through the cracks in the doorframe. Riz shakes his head in a daze as he tries to get his bearings in the wake of the explosion, but he notices that the expected shake of the door being rammed never comes.

Instead, there’s a sharp knock on the woodwork.

“Hey! We’ve got twenty minutes before everyone starts coming to, let’s fuck off!” Savon’s voice shouts through the door. “My nephew better be alive in there, otherwise I’ll fucken kill ya’!”

“I’m alive,” Legoshi says weakly.

Riz pulls the door open to reveal Savon’s powerful figure surrounded by groaning lions in the hallway, a bulky venom masked affixed to his face. A smile crinkles the komodo’s eyes as he sees the hybrid walking a little unsteadily out of the room.

“So, this is the herbie we did all this for?” Savon asks, addressing Tem.

“Yeah, this is,” Tem replies in a tone that makes Riz grin. “You got a problem, old man?”

“No, no, of course not,” Savon laughs. “Let’s make tracks.”

Riz nods, and slings one of Legoshi’s shoulders over his own so he can support his wounded boyfriend as they walk. Blood streaks across Riz’s fur and shirt from Legoshi’s claws, and part of his body revolts at the smell. A larger part, however, the part that remembers the hybrid’s shy touch and playing him music in his room after Drama club, suddenly pulls him into a desperate hug. Gore squelches against Riz’s cheek, but he doesn’t care. 

He pulls back to kiss Legoshi’s forehead with a force that he feels he can’t contain, nor can he properly express in a single motion.

“I’m happy you’re safe,” Riz breathes.

“Thank you,” Legoshi mumbles.

Riz pulls back fully once again and starts walking after Savon and Louis, ignoring the buck’s eye-rolling and the komodo’s impatient boot tapping. After a few steps, he feels a hand close on his other side, and looks down to see Tem holding his free hand tightly.

As they all walk out of the gates, rain washing the worst of the blood and gore out of their fur and scales, Riz takes one last look at the mansion. Despite the violence inflicted on, in, and around it, it still looms against the night sky like a titan of the city.

‘It really is old, isn’t it?’ Riz thinks to himself. ‘I wonder what came first, the Black Market or the city surrounding it. I wonder if the world will ever be free of it, of these gangs, of this bloodshed.’

“Hey, you okay?” Tem asks, tugging gently at his hand.

“What?” Riz turns his head back to the alpaca.

“You alright?” Tem repeats.

“I should be asking you that,” Riz chuckles.

“Don’t avoid the question.”

Riz stops himself from denying it, and thinks instead.

“I’m happy that we saved you, but I’m also scared at what might happen,” Riz says. Looking around, he catches Legoshi’s unblinking gaze. “I don’t know what’s in the future.”

“No one knows that,” Tem says with a small smile. “We just have to roll with the punches, you know?”

“Sea-glass,” Legoshi murmurs.

“You know, you’ve really got to explain that one to me at some point,” Tem says, and starts walking forward again.

Riz follows him in a slight daze.

‘Something’s changed about you, Tem.’ Riz looks from the alpaca to the hybrid. ‘Something’s changed about all of us. At least we’ll have each other as we find out what.’