Afternoon with fReed

>Ah yes, the Volcano High cafeteria.
>if you'd told old loner me that I'd enjoy sitting here with other people, friends even, and spending our lunch together, I'd have called you crazy.
>not to your face, perhaps.
>but I would've made a sarcastic post about it later.
>guess I've really grown as a person.
>and thinking of friends and growing...
>my searching eyes wander along the line of students still waiting for their food.
>there they are.
>Trish has her back to me, as she is currently talking to the lunchlady filling her tray, but it's not like she's the main attraction here.
>that would be the raptor behind her.
>oh yes, Reed certainly has done the most growing out of all of us recently.
>and in all the right, or rather, wrong places, too.
>perhaps I should have said something when he made the switch from carfentanyl to this sythetic hormone stuff, but what did I know?
>the guy has been doing terrifying amounts drugs that would have killed lesser beings for as long as I have known him and never suffered any ill effects
>his electrical engineering at Moe's had looked like a fire hazard and had worked just fine.
>evidently Reed knew what he was doing.
>so I had assumed that things would be the same this time.
>seems like I was wrong.
>to say that there were side effects would be selling things short.
>he'd started taking this stuff on a friday, and when I saw him the monday after I already could tell that there was something going on.
>his scales had been even brighter than usual and shone as if they had been freshly groomed.
>the feathers on his head had seemed longer as well, and I could have sworn that his hips had flared out a little wider than usual.
>but I'll admit, it had been kind of easy to dismiss the concerns raised by this.
>Reed had simply taken a much more thorough shower than usual this morning.
>perhaps he'd started track and was building some more muscle in his thighs.
>he definitely needed a haircut though.
>but over the next few weeks, those simple dismissals had become impossible.
>now let me make something clear:
>as an avid user of certain finngolian wine tasting websites, you are going to sooner or later see a whole bunch of traps.
>and or trans.
>don't even have to see that sort of stuff out.
>you know the deal.
>anyways, what I am getting at here is that
>if I hadn't known him before, I never would have believed that Reed was a male.
>not with that wild feathery mane, barely kept in check by a haphazardly slung bandana.
>the lithe, sporty body with nonetheless pronounced hips.
>the torn old tank top that's barely held together by two knots and always seems close to slipping and revealing just a bit too much of Reed's perky new-
>hrrr-hmmm
>where were we?
>Oh yeah.
>That easygoing smile underneath eyes that seem stuck in a half-lidded trance more often than not.
>Reed must have some great facial genetics.
>his eyelash game should have been illegal even before this whole mess started, after all.
>"What are you looking at?"
>a quick jab into my ribs makes me tear my eyes off of the pink raptor in the line of hungry highschoolers and turn them towards Fang.
Fang who is sitting right next to me and giving me a glare that stops just short of activating my fight or flight response.
>Fang, my beautiful and beloved girlfriend.
>Dear Raptor Jesus, if I've mumbled my thoughts out again, I'm so fucking dead.
>"Are you even listening to me," Fang asks.
>While I do my best to appear nonchalant, I inwardly breathe a sigh of relief.
>No unwanted golf lessons for me this time.
>"You were talking about Mr. Jingo," I guess, trying my best to sound confident.
>"So you really weren't listening. No, Anon, I wasn't talking about Mr Jingo. What were you staring at, anyways?"
>Oh dear God, the glare intensifies.
>"Jeez, Fang, I was just looking for the others. Can't you get off my case?"
>Suddenly the anger in her face is gone, replaced with something that looks a whole lot more like sadness
>"Alright."
>with that, she grabs her tray, stands up and makes for the exit.
>I jump to my feet as well, but Fang has already disappeared through the cafeteria door.
>"Hey Anon," I hear Reed's voice behind me.
>"Should we give you some space?"