Scene #1 for July: HSDays 27: Scenes about Nick and Kyle

Scene #1 for July, 2016

Artwork by the excellent Kaput

Universe: High School Days

Tags: Wolf, Tiger

1,079 words

This is stuff that's being added to Chapter 27 to connect scenes together. More coming, sorry I don't really have a sketch to go along with these scenes, nothing sexy happens yet. It will soon however, hope you enjoy!

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The morning sunlight glinted off Nick’s car as it turned the corner of Kyle’s street, the sleek black mustang weaving through the parked cars easily as the wolf drove up to Kyle’s house. Only, the tiger wasn’t waiting outside for him. Nick frowned, his fingers gripping the wheel a bit tighter. This was not a good sign.

All weekend Kyle had refused to answer Nick’s calls, and after what happened between them Friday night the wolf was beginning to really worry. The look of shock and disgust on Kyle’s face just before he ran out of Nick’s place haunted the wolf. Nick honked the horn twice, the signal he always used to alert the tiger he was outside. The big black wolf shifted in the polished leather seats, his chest tightening as he began to breathe heavily. He always drove Kyle to school. If the tiger wasn’t coming out of his house, it was because he didn’t want to see Nick. A hint of panic began to rise in the wolf’s heart as Mrs. Perez twitched the curtain aside to look out the front windows.

Then, the front door opened, and one of the little kids, a cream-colored hare boy, came running out of the house. With a mighty leap he jump and managed to get his arms over the side of the car door, his floppy ears hanging down over his face as he grinned at Nick. “Hey Mr. Wolf! Mom says to say that Kyle took the bus this morning,” he blurted out, as if delivering this message was the most important thing in the world.

Nick’s finger’s tightened on the steering wheel, his whole body tensing. He tried to keep calm, but the wolf’s fingers gripped the steering wheel so hard the leather creaked under the pressure. It was like the little rabbit had smacked him in the face with a brick. The boy’s head turned to the side, and he said, “You okay mister?” the hare said quietly, and Nick just nodded, not trusting himself to speak without growling.

The hare dropped down and raced back towards the house, where a small badger boy was waiting for him, holding their backpacks. Nick looked away from Kyle’s house blinked his eyes furiously as he drove away, anger and hurt rising in his chest like a boiling cloud. This isn’t fair, the wolf thought as he slammed the gas petal down and drove like a maniac towards the school, barely keeping his emotions under control as anger churned into other, more distracting feelings. He hadn’t done anything with Kyle that the tiger didn’t want to do. Nick slammed his paw into the dashboard, forcing his emotions back down so that by the time he got to school he looked and sounded perfectly calm.

***

(This scene where Kyle hits Nick go here.)

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Sitting down in first period physics, Nick pointedly sat in the front row and did not look at anyone but the teacher. A couple of the guys from the wrestling team tried to say hello, but he ignored them, and he especially ignored the goat who normally sat in the seat he had taken. It was open seating in this class; Nick could sit wherever the hell he wanted. So the big black wolf just growled softly and ignored the nervous Billy goat, who slunk to the back of the room and took Nick’s usual seat.

When Kevin came in he pointedly avoided crossing the wolf’s gaze as he took his usual seat on the wolf’s left side, and Nick was glad the Dalmatian didn’t seem try to talk with him.

Nick didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. He especially didn’t want to talk to Kyle, the big stupid meathead… Nick’s anger drained out of him slowly as he felt a dull throbbing in his right pectoral where Kyle had hit him. His best friend in the world…

Class started, and the big black wolf said nothing, and thought about nothing, except for the kinetic energy calculation problems the teacher was reviewing for the test on Friday.

***

All through first period, Kyle had to fight to keep his ears forward and his hackles down as a couple cheerleaders, a squirrel and doe in the back of his class, whispered about the queer in the hallways. They were gossiping just loudly enough for the tiger to hear every third word, but if he made any sign that he heard them it would become even worse. He would be acknowledging what they were saying, and then everybody sitting between him and the two cheerleaders would see him listening in and know that he knew that everyone knew the tiger was a fag…

Kyle was about ready tear out his own whiskers when he heard them say Todd’s name. Then the doe whispered something about a kangaroo. A wave of relief washed over Kyle as the tiger realized that the two girls weren’t gossiping about him.

Free now to listen in without it being suspicious, the tiger’s ears swiveled towards them, and he listened intently, as was most of the class. The two cheerleaders were in an absolute tizzy about the fox’s return alongside his apparent boyfriend, the kangaroo David. One of the girls was certain that Todd was dating Keith, but the other assured her she’d seen him arm in arm with that new boy on the soccer team, that kangaroo. It had taken five minutes of excited chattering for them to decide that Todd must be sleeping with both of them, before being shushed by the teacher after a fit of giggles.

Once the bell rang and everybody started moving towards their next class, the school hallways were absolutely filled with rumor, and Kyle was not happy to hear his own name being whispered alongside names like Keith, Todd, or David’s. Blake’s name didn’t come up much, at least not within the tiger’s acute hearing range, but it seemed like absolutely everybody was whispering the word ‘gay’ just as he passed by. It made the already close to panicking tiger’s stomach churn, and his chest was so tight it felt as if he’d been doing lunges all morning long not sitting at his desk, reading some stupid book Jane Austen story about silly girls who couldn’t admit they were in love with the man there were so obviously going to hook up with in the end. Kyle’s tail was twitching and people were scurrying out of his way as he stalked through the halls, because who wants to get between an enraged looking tiger and where he’s going.

***