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Entry tags:
Sally Face | like wolves ravening the prey
Rating: T
Fandom: Sally Face
Characters: Travis Phelps, Sal Fisher, Ashley Campbell (briefly), Kenneth Phelps (mentioned)
Relationships: Sal Fisher/Travis Phelps
Words: 2,982
Content Warnings: Eating humans, violence, puking
Tropes: Alternate Universe - Monsters, Metaphor, Internalized Homophobia (Travis Phelps), Themes of Religion, Pining
Summary: He supposes that he should be grateful that he was a werewolf, and not something like a vampire; a creature which was hurt from contact with a cross or crucifix. Suddenly refusing to wear his usual cross necklace that he had worn regularly for years would be a lot more suspicious to his dad than his apparent constant hunger.
But it wasn't just regular food that Travis wanted to sink his teeth into.
Or: Being a monster as a metaphor for queerness.
Look, I know that being a monster as a metaphor for queerness is considered problematic, but I'm queer and I think it's sick as fuck, so just roll with it.
Also, warning for, like... Eating people? (I can't call it 'cannibalism', exactly, because Sal is a human and Travis is a werewolf, but there is definitely extended talk of Eating Humans. None of it is literal, though; again, none of this is actually happening. It's all metaphors, baby.)
Lastly, for those not familiar, the title of this fic is in reference to a Bible verse. The full quote is, "... Like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain."
The Bible directly mentions the concept of monsters one time, and Travis has memorized it. Not out of any desire to be comforted, but to remind himself of what he is in the eyes of God.
Abomination.
A person is described as similar to a monster, in a verse not directly about them. Refers to them as unnatural, shameful, defiled. Another verse not pointedly about them says that only humans should be allowed in churches.
That particular command was a little difficult to obey, given that Travis was the son of a pastor. But he supposed that he was (relatively) lucky that he wasn't something like a vampire; a creature which was hurt from contact with a cross or crucifix. Suddenly refusing to wear his usual cross necklace that he had worn regularly for years would be a lot more suspicious to his dad than his apparent constant hunger. At least that could partially be explained away by puberty.
But it wasn't just regular food that Travis wanted to sink his teeth into.
He didn't trust himself around boys. He didn't trust himself to not just snap one day, lunge forward and bite their throat.
Even just looking at boys made him feel like he was eating them, somehow. Being close to them, touching them. Being overwhelmed by their scent. He felt indescribable shame overwhelm him each time he caught his mouth watering. And sure, it was just what he was, he supposed. Werewolves needed to hunt. But that didn't excuse making other boys his prey. It didn't excuse his leering eyes looking at them like they're just pieces of meat for his consumption. It didn't make it any less disgusting.
(He had tried eating a girl. Just once. Somehow, it felt less morally corrupt when it was a girl. He had a feeling it wouldn't help, but he had to try anyway. Like he thought, though, it was just like eating regular food; it didn't fill him, and it tasted fucking vile, too. The only difference between this and a sandwich was that he threw up after eating the girl and compulsively brushed his teeth over and over the next week.)
(Even looking at boys made him feel like he had to brush his teeth now.)
Travis smelled Sal before he saw him. He doesn't recognize people just by scent often. Just his dad (out of necessity) and Sal (whose scent he had memorized before he had even realized he was starting to memorize it).
He hated how Sal smelled. It made his stomach growl.
"Hey, freak!"
Sal turned to him as if he had called his name, and it made Travis smirk. "Nobody likes a goody-two-shoes, Saaally Face~" he taunted, hardly noticing the way that the girl's face turned into a scowl from behind him.
Without missing a beat, Sal replied, "Nobody likes a cliche bully, Traaavis," imitating the way Travis had drawn his name out.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" the girl asked, more annoyed that Travis was picking on Sal than Sal was.
Travis shifted his gaze to her, narrowing his eyes. "Shut up, bitch! I wasn't talking to you."
"You know, if you took that stick out of your ass you may actually enjoy yourself for once. Maybe even make a friend or two," Sal shot back, apparently more provoked by Travis insulting the girl than himself.
Travis rolled his eyes, huffing (which was a mistake; the inhale made him have to withstand a lungfull of Sal's fucking smell). "Fuck off, Frankenstein! I have more friends than you'll ever have!"
"You kiss your daddy with that tongue? I'm sure he-"
Travis had to actively work to not bare his teeth at the mention of his father, and instead of lunging forward and finally biting that fucker, he swung his fist into Sal's face, which, while it wasn't as satisfying as he imagined biting him would be (not that he let himself imagine biting him... regularly), it still managed to get him to shut up and fuck off long enough to let him storm off, clenching and unclenching his fists.
The girl said something or other to his back, but he was focused on Sal's smell getting weaker as he walked away.
Just because it doesn't fill him doesn't mean that he can't appreciate bologna day anymore. It's not like he can't taste it. It just leaves him hungry. Hungrier, maybe - sharpens the sensation. Like how he read drinking water can make someone starving feel even more ravenous.
At some point, Sal passed by his table. He didn't have to look up to know.
He was pretty sure he was starving.
Travis ended up scribbling the last line of the note before he had even finished writing it.
What kind of an idea was this? To write him a letter confessing to being an actual fucking monster was one thing, and it was stupid enough on his own. To try to confess to wanting to fucking eat him?
Although, he supposed, he knew from the moment he started writing that he was never going to give the letter to Sal, anyway. Sal had always been indifferent to Travis' bullying. But if he knew what Travis really was, what he really thought when he looked at him; not disgust or hatred, but hunger...
That he wasn't a boy acting like a monster, but a monster acting like a boy.
He threw the door to the boy's bathroom open, throwing his stupid letter in the general direction of the garbage can as his vision blurred, too focused on getting to the stalls before he started to cry. He slammed the door behind him and slumped against the door, sliding down until he was sitting. Even if no one was around to see him, he buried his face in his bruised knees when the tears began to fall.
He was always ugly when he cried; his face got all scrunched up and red and it usually just looked like he was scowling. But he had learned how to cry silently a long time ago.
It was a survival tactic, more than anything.
Another survival tactic: learning how to keep it short. It took only a few minutes before his breathing was evening out, and the tears slowed almost to a stop. It would have taken just a few more moments.
But then, his nose twitched before he even heard the door opening. He tilted his head back against the door and grit his teeth, holding back a frustrated groan.
Sal fucking Fisher.
Travis stayed deathly still, even held his breath, keeping his eyes trained to the ceiling. Dear God, please, he pleaded internally, growing more frantic as he smelled, more than heard, Sal getting closer. God please, please, please-
A gentle tap of knuckles against the door. "Anyone in there?"
Travis stopped pressing the back of his head against the door, and let himself bare his teeth this time, with the knowledge nobody could see him. "No, duh, fuckwad. Buzz off!" He sniffled before he could think better of it, then stiffened up.
"Travis?" Sal's voice went soft, and Travis scrunched his whole face up in anger; both that he had given himself away, and that he felt his hunger sharpen and stomach turn. "Were you just... Crying a second ago?"
"I- no!" Travis barked, turning his head to look at the door, glaring at it, knowing that Sal was on the other side. "What the hell? Can't a guy get some privacy?"
Sal paused, and Travis relaxed, thinking maybe, maybe he would leave, before Sal spoke again.
"Why do you hate me so much?"
Because you look like you'd taste too delicious for your own good, a bitter voice sneered in his head.
Instead, Travis replied easily, "Because you're a fucking freak! Putting that mask on to hide your freaky stitched-together face!!"
"It's a prosthetic."
"Whatever it is, it's not natural! It's not human! God will never love you! Why should I?"
Travis rolled his eyes at himself immediately after saying that, scoffing at himself. The irony of saying that wasn't lost on him.
"You know that I'm not actually any sort of monster, right? I mean, I hunt for ghosts and stuff, but the ones that I've met are just like humans. They're just a little different and I think that's cool."
He almost forgot that Sal actively searched for monsters to interact with. "Ugh."
Sal went quiet for a moment, and Travis thought, again, that maybe he might just leave, before he spoke again, with a thoughtful tone. "Is your father pushing these beliefs on you?"
Travis curled his lip and he bunched his shoulders up, a little too much bitterness seeping into his tone. "Just because my dad is a preacher doesn't mean he owns me! I'm my own person!" He dug his nails into his palms as he spoke. Everyone assumed that he had to be just like his fucking dad. Just an extension of him. It wasn't like the church was the only place that hated abominations with unnatural desires.
(Some people even wanted him to be just like his father. The church-going types.)
"Yeah, but... Well, you seem so unhappy, man. Are you sure your dad isn't putting too much pressure on you? I bet it's tough being the son of such an intense man."
(If only Sal knew. If only any of the people at the church fucking knew.)
(All of this glaring was starting to make his black eye hurt.)
Travis pressed his forehead into his knees, sighing. "You have no idea what it's like." He tried to inject anger into it, but it came out softer than he intended. Less irritated, more... Exhausted.
He supposed that he was pretty damn exhausted.
And hungry. So fucking hungry.
"I'm sorry, man."
Something must have been wired wrong in his brain; something left on when it was meant to be off; because, where most people would have gone soft, Travis sharpened, hardened. "Don't feel sorry for me, Sally Face. I don't need your pity."
"We don't have to be enemies. You know that, right?"
As soon as Travis thought that, he felt bitter all over again. He was trying to protect Sally Face. He hadn't consciously realized it until now, but he had been trying to protect him from himself. What a fucking joke.
"I think under all of that anger, there's a good dude who's afraid to be himself."
As if him 'being himself' would result in anything positive. For anyone.
"If you ever need someone to talk to, or if you need to get away from your dad for a while, you can hang out with me."
Travis huffed, thinking for a moment about Sal's laughable lack of survival skills. But, despite himself, he did feel himself soften this time. He brought his knees down and let his hands rest in his lap, staring at them and silent for a moment, before eventually muttering out, "Why-... Why are you being so nice to me?"
"I don't think you're a bad person, Travis."
Travis picked at his nails for a moment, going quiet again.
Dammit. Despite his best efforts, he was happy. He was glad that someone thought that he was good. He was glad that somebody cared for a monster like him, despite his best efforts.
Before he could think better of it, second-guess it until he decided to not say it at all, he responded, "You know, I don't really hate you..."
"I didn't really think so." There was a soft chuckle in Sal's voice when he said that, and it reminded Travis again, after being distracted from it for some minutes, how fucking hungry he was. Again sharpening it. Like water to a starving man. Travis brought both hands to his stomach and curled up again, gritting his teeth, waiting for the hunger pains to pass.
It took a few moments for him to grow numb to it again, and he felt angry for a moment, before it faded as quickly as it came.
It wasn't Sal's fault that Travis desired him in the worst way. It wasn't his fault that something as small as a laugh could set off a hunger and need so bad that it left him shaking.
Travis took a moment to consider that, before sighing. "I-I guess..." He squeezed and unsqueezed his fists once. "Well, I'm sorry. I've been such an asshole. You don't deserve that."
"That means a lot to me." Travis could tell Sal was smiling from the tone of his voice, and he was worried, at this rate, that his stomach would start audibly growling.
He curled up tighter, holding onto his stomach again. He had never fucking wanted anything so bad in his life. He had never been so hungry. A hunger that never left, even when he had food, cradled by shame, disgust, self-loathing. A desire for another boy.
He had to get out of there.
Travis staggered up as quickly as he could, taking a breath to try and steady himself and the dizziness, before throwing the stall door open, trying his hardest to not breathe in through his nose or look at Sal or even take note that he was there, and he had to put a hand against the stalls to steady himself as he started to leave, and-
"Wait-!"
Sal put his hand on Travis' shoulder, and Travis knew that it was fucking over. He knew it in the pit of his stomach, in the way his heart raced, in the way his eyes narrowed to slits. One of the only giveaways to his nonhumanity, the way his eyes narrowed. Maybe if Sal could have seen his face, he would have known to run.
Travis heard his heartbeat in his ears first, and Sal's next words second. "Thank you," he said, and there was a slight surprised lilt to his voice, as if he wasn't expecting Travis to actually freeze. "And what I said, about being there for you-"
Something snapped.
The first thing that Travis noticed was a shift of the feeling in his chest; finally relaxing, taking a breath. And the next thing that Travis noticed was that he's snarling. Then, that he was biting down into the soft flesh of Sal's neck.
Blood bursted into his mouth, spilled over his chin, and the part of him that was still somewhat human screamed in horror, and fought and clawed to get back in control, but, in that moment, that was only at the back of his mind. Everything except for his instinct to finally fucking eat was fuzzy; Sal's scream, the way that he wriggled to get out of Travis' arms that had locked around him, the wet sound of tearing meat.
In just a moment, Travis was shoved off, though; pushed and he stumbled until he fell on his ass. For a moment, he was readying to get back up and pounce again, his muscles tensing to do so, but then his narrowed eyes landed on Sal for just a moment.
His more human side rushed back in an instant, and he froze.
He had to look up to see Sal. It was always hard to see his eyes, with his prosthetic putting shadows over them, but they were undeniably wide and confused now as he took a few steps back, putting distance between him and Travis. Frightened. Still, as they stared at each other, both in shock, Sal brought his fingers to the wound before flinching, then taking his eyes off Travis for just a moment to look at the blood on his fingers, as if confirming it was real.
Sal let his hands fall to his side, and took another step back.
"Um."
As soon as Travis heard Sal's voice, he opened his mouth and dropped the bit of flesh that he had torn off to the dirty bathroom floor, unable to think of anything else he possibly could do. (And, sure, he probably should have eaten it... Just in terms of survival. But he was not going to fucking chew and then swallow that piece of Sal while he was fucking looking at him.)
The urge to brush his teeth, wipe the blood away, throw up all the contents of his stomach, curl up and die, and... Fuck, apologize?? What does one do when in this situation? What does one do after they just caved in to the most horrific and inhuman of their desires? In front of the only person who had ever shown him a hint of fucking kindness? The only person whose scent that he had memorized due to it bringing comfort instead of fear?
And then he actually was going to throw up. He brought a hand to his blood-covered mouth as bile surged in the back of his throat, and then he was scrambling out of the bathroom; first on all fours, like the animal he was, as he tried to get his barings on the floor, then back on his two feet, right before reaching the door and sprinting the fuck out of there.
He had barely managed to leave the school (he was going anywhere, somewhere, just not fucking here) before he had fallen onto his knees in the grass outside and started throwing up. It's a vile burn of acid that leaves him feeling emptier and hungrier than he ever has, leaves him shivering and gasping and sweating so hard he can't tell if he's crying or not.
But at least it had gotten the taste of Sal out of his mouth.
Because the worst part was that Sal tasted fucking divine.
Fandom: Sally Face
Characters: Travis Phelps, Sal Fisher, Ashley Campbell (briefly), Kenneth Phelps (mentioned)
Relationships: Sal Fisher/Travis Phelps
Words: 2,982
Content Warnings: Eating humans, violence, puking
Tropes: Alternate Universe - Monsters, Metaphor, Internalized Homophobia (Travis Phelps), Themes of Religion, Pining
Summary: He supposes that he should be grateful that he was a werewolf, and not something like a vampire; a creature which was hurt from contact with a cross or crucifix. Suddenly refusing to wear his usual cross necklace that he had worn regularly for years would be a lot more suspicious to his dad than his apparent constant hunger.
But it wasn't just regular food that Travis wanted to sink his teeth into.
Or: Being a monster as a metaphor for queerness.
Look, I know that being a monster as a metaphor for queerness is considered problematic, but I'm queer and I think it's sick as fuck, so just roll with it.
Also, warning for, like... Eating people? (I can't call it 'cannibalism', exactly, because Sal is a human and Travis is a werewolf, but there is definitely extended talk of Eating Humans. None of it is literal, though; again, none of this is actually happening. It's all metaphors, baby.)
Lastly, for those not familiar, the title of this fic is in reference to a Bible verse. The full quote is, "... Like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain."
The Bible directly mentions the concept of monsters one time, and Travis has memorized it. Not out of any desire to be comforted, but to remind himself of what he is in the eyes of God.
Abomination.
A person is described as similar to a monster, in a verse not directly about them. Refers to them as unnatural, shameful, defiled. Another verse not pointedly about them says that only humans should be allowed in churches.
That particular command was a little difficult to obey, given that Travis was the son of a pastor. But he supposed that he was (relatively) lucky that he wasn't something like a vampire; a creature which was hurt from contact with a cross or crucifix. Suddenly refusing to wear his usual cross necklace that he had worn regularly for years would be a lot more suspicious to his dad than his apparent constant hunger. At least that could partially be explained away by puberty.
But it wasn't just regular food that Travis wanted to sink his teeth into.
He didn't trust himself around boys. He didn't trust himself to not just snap one day, lunge forward and bite their throat.
Even just looking at boys made him feel like he was eating them, somehow. Being close to them, touching them. Being overwhelmed by their scent. He felt indescribable shame overwhelm him each time he caught his mouth watering. And sure, it was just what he was, he supposed. Werewolves needed to hunt. But that didn't excuse making other boys his prey. It didn't excuse his leering eyes looking at them like they're just pieces of meat for his consumption. It didn't make it any less disgusting.
(He had tried eating a girl. Just once. Somehow, it felt less morally corrupt when it was a girl. He had a feeling it wouldn't help, but he had to try anyway. Like he thought, though, it was just like eating regular food; it didn't fill him, and it tasted fucking vile, too. The only difference between this and a sandwich was that he threw up after eating the girl and compulsively brushed his teeth over and over the next week.)
(Even looking at boys made him feel like he had to brush his teeth now.)
Travis smelled Sal before he saw him. He doesn't recognize people just by scent often. Just his dad (out of necessity) and Sal (whose scent he had memorized before he had even realized he was starting to memorize it).
He hated how Sal smelled. It made his stomach growl.
"Hey, freak!"
Sal turned to him as if he had called his name, and it made Travis smirk. "Nobody likes a goody-two-shoes, Saaally Face~" he taunted, hardly noticing the way that the girl's face turned into a scowl from behind him.
Without missing a beat, Sal replied, "Nobody likes a cliche bully, Traaavis," imitating the way Travis had drawn his name out.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" the girl asked, more annoyed that Travis was picking on Sal than Sal was.
Travis shifted his gaze to her, narrowing his eyes. "Shut up, bitch! I wasn't talking to you."
"You know, if you took that stick out of your ass you may actually enjoy yourself for once. Maybe even make a friend or two," Sal shot back, apparently more provoked by Travis insulting the girl than himself.
Travis rolled his eyes, huffing (which was a mistake; the inhale made him have to withstand a lungfull of Sal's fucking smell). "Fuck off, Frankenstein! I have more friends than you'll ever have!"
"You kiss your daddy with that tongue? I'm sure he-"
Travis had to actively work to not bare his teeth at the mention of his father, and instead of lunging forward and finally biting that fucker, he swung his fist into Sal's face, which, while it wasn't as satisfying as he imagined biting him would be (not that he let himself imagine biting him... regularly), it still managed to get him to shut up and fuck off long enough to let him storm off, clenching and unclenching his fists.
The girl said something or other to his back, but he was focused on Sal's smell getting weaker as he walked away.
Just because it doesn't fill him doesn't mean that he can't appreciate bologna day anymore. It's not like he can't taste it. It just leaves him hungry. Hungrier, maybe - sharpens the sensation. Like how he read drinking water can make someone starving feel even more ravenous.
At some point, Sal passed by his table. He didn't have to look up to know.
He was pretty sure he was starving.
Travis ended up scribbling the last line of the note before he had even finished writing it.
What kind of an idea was this? To write him a letter confessing to being an actual fucking monster was one thing, and it was stupid enough on his own. To try to confess to wanting to fucking eat him?
Although, he supposed, he knew from the moment he started writing that he was never going to give the letter to Sal, anyway. Sal had always been indifferent to Travis' bullying. But if he knew what Travis really was, what he really thought when he looked at him; not disgust or hatred, but hunger...
That he wasn't a boy acting like a monster, but a monster acting like a boy.
He threw the door to the boy's bathroom open, throwing his stupid letter in the general direction of the garbage can as his vision blurred, too focused on getting to the stalls before he started to cry. He slammed the door behind him and slumped against the door, sliding down until he was sitting. Even if no one was around to see him, he buried his face in his bruised knees when the tears began to fall.
He was always ugly when he cried; his face got all scrunched up and red and it usually just looked like he was scowling. But he had learned how to cry silently a long time ago.
It was a survival tactic, more than anything.
Another survival tactic: learning how to keep it short. It took only a few minutes before his breathing was evening out, and the tears slowed almost to a stop. It would have taken just a few more moments.
But then, his nose twitched before he even heard the door opening. He tilted his head back against the door and grit his teeth, holding back a frustrated groan.
Sal fucking Fisher.
Travis stayed deathly still, even held his breath, keeping his eyes trained to the ceiling. Dear God, please, he pleaded internally, growing more frantic as he smelled, more than heard, Sal getting closer. God please, please, please-
A gentle tap of knuckles against the door. "Anyone in there?"
Oh, come on.
Travis stopped pressing the back of his head against the door, and let himself bare his teeth this time, with the knowledge nobody could see him. "No, duh, fuckwad. Buzz off!" He sniffled before he could think better of it, then stiffened up.
"Travis?" Sal's voice went soft, and Travis scrunched his whole face up in anger; both that he had given himself away, and that he felt his hunger sharpen and stomach turn. "Were you just... Crying a second ago?"
"I- no!" Travis barked, turning his head to look at the door, glaring at it, knowing that Sal was on the other side. "What the hell? Can't a guy get some privacy?"
Sal paused, and Travis relaxed, thinking maybe, maybe he would leave, before Sal spoke again.
"Why do you hate me so much?"
Because you look like you'd taste too delicious for your own good, a bitter voice sneered in his head.
Instead, Travis replied easily, "Because you're a fucking freak! Putting that mask on to hide your freaky stitched-together face!!"
"It's a prosthetic."
"Whatever it is, it's not natural! It's not human! God will never love you! Why should I?"
Travis rolled his eyes at himself immediately after saying that, scoffing at himself. The irony of saying that wasn't lost on him.
"You know that I'm not actually any sort of monster, right? I mean, I hunt for ghosts and stuff, but the ones that I've met are just like humans. They're just a little different and I think that's cool."
He almost forgot that Sal actively searched for monsters to interact with. "Ugh."
Sal went quiet for a moment, and Travis thought, again, that maybe he might just leave, before he spoke again, with a thoughtful tone. "Is your father pushing these beliefs on you?"
Travis curled his lip and he bunched his shoulders up, a little too much bitterness seeping into his tone. "Just because my dad is a preacher doesn't mean he owns me! I'm my own person!" He dug his nails into his palms as he spoke. Everyone assumed that he had to be just like his fucking dad. Just an extension of him. It wasn't like the church was the only place that hated abominations with unnatural desires.
(Some people even wanted him to be just like his father. The church-going types.)
"Yeah, but... Well, you seem so unhappy, man. Are you sure your dad isn't putting too much pressure on you? I bet it's tough being the son of such an intense man."
(If only Sal knew. If only any of the people at the church fucking knew.)
(All of this glaring was starting to make his black eye hurt.)
Travis pressed his forehead into his knees, sighing. "You have no idea what it's like." He tried to inject anger into it, but it came out softer than he intended. Less irritated, more... Exhausted.
He supposed that he was pretty damn exhausted.
And hungry. So fucking hungry.
"I'm sorry, man."
Something must have been wired wrong in his brain; something left on when it was meant to be off; because, where most people would have gone soft, Travis sharpened, hardened. "Don't feel sorry for me, Sally Face. I don't need your pity."
"We don't have to be enemies. You know that, right?"
Yeah, right. As if, the second he let Sal get closer to him, Travis wouldn't go for his neck.
As soon as Travis thought that, he felt bitter all over again. He was trying to protect Sally Face. He hadn't consciously realized it until now, but he had been trying to protect him from himself. What a fucking joke.
"I think under all of that anger, there's a good dude who's afraid to be himself."
As if him 'being himself' would result in anything positive. For anyone.
"If you ever need someone to talk to, or if you need to get away from your dad for a while, you can hang out with me."
Travis huffed, thinking for a moment about Sal's laughable lack of survival skills. But, despite himself, he did feel himself soften this time. He brought his knees down and let his hands rest in his lap, staring at them and silent for a moment, before eventually muttering out, "Why-... Why are you being so nice to me?"
"I don't think you're a bad person, Travis."
I'm not a person at all.
Travis picked at his nails for a moment, going quiet again.
Dammit. Despite his best efforts, he was happy. He was glad that someone thought that he was good. He was glad that somebody cared for a monster like him, despite his best efforts.
Before he could think better of it, second-guess it until he decided to not say it at all, he responded, "You know, I don't really hate you..."
"I didn't really think so." There was a soft chuckle in Sal's voice when he said that, and it reminded Travis again, after being distracted from it for some minutes, how fucking hungry he was. Again sharpening it. Like water to a starving man. Travis brought both hands to his stomach and curled up again, gritting his teeth, waiting for the hunger pains to pass.
It took a few moments for him to grow numb to it again, and he felt angry for a moment, before it faded as quickly as it came.
It wasn't Sal's fault that Travis desired him in the worst way. It wasn't his fault that something as small as a laugh could set off a hunger and need so bad that it left him shaking.
Travis took a moment to consider that, before sighing. "I-I guess..." He squeezed and unsqueezed his fists once. "Well, I'm sorry. I've been such an asshole. You don't deserve that."
"That means a lot to me." Travis could tell Sal was smiling from the tone of his voice, and he was worried, at this rate, that his stomach would start audibly growling.
He curled up tighter, holding onto his stomach again. He had never fucking wanted anything so bad in his life. He had never been so hungry. A hunger that never left, even when he had food, cradled by shame, disgust, self-loathing. A desire for another boy.
He had to get out of there.
Travis staggered up as quickly as he could, taking a breath to try and steady himself and the dizziness, before throwing the stall door open, trying his hardest to not breathe in through his nose or look at Sal or even take note that he was there, and he had to put a hand against the stalls to steady himself as he started to leave, and-
"Wait-!"
Sal put his hand on Travis' shoulder, and Travis knew that it was fucking over. He knew it in the pit of his stomach, in the way his heart raced, in the way his eyes narrowed to slits. One of the only giveaways to his nonhumanity, the way his eyes narrowed. Maybe if Sal could have seen his face, he would have known to run.
Travis heard his heartbeat in his ears first, and Sal's next words second. "Thank you," he said, and there was a slight surprised lilt to his voice, as if he wasn't expecting Travis to actually freeze. "And what I said, about being there for you-"
Something snapped.
The first thing that Travis noticed was a shift of the feeling in his chest; finally relaxing, taking a breath. And the next thing that Travis noticed was that he's snarling. Then, that he was biting down into the soft flesh of Sal's neck.
Blood bursted into his mouth, spilled over his chin, and the part of him that was still somewhat human screamed in horror, and fought and clawed to get back in control, but, in that moment, that was only at the back of his mind. Everything except for his instinct to finally fucking eat was fuzzy; Sal's scream, the way that he wriggled to get out of Travis' arms that had locked around him, the wet sound of tearing meat.
In just a moment, Travis was shoved off, though; pushed and he stumbled until he fell on his ass. For a moment, he was readying to get back up and pounce again, his muscles tensing to do so, but then his narrowed eyes landed on Sal for just a moment.
His more human side rushed back in an instant, and he froze.
He had to look up to see Sal. It was always hard to see his eyes, with his prosthetic putting shadows over them, but they were undeniably wide and confused now as he took a few steps back, putting distance between him and Travis. Frightened. Still, as they stared at each other, both in shock, Sal brought his fingers to the wound before flinching, then taking his eyes off Travis for just a moment to look at the blood on his fingers, as if confirming it was real.
Sal let his hands fall to his side, and took another step back.
"Um."
As soon as Travis heard Sal's voice, he opened his mouth and dropped the bit of flesh that he had torn off to the dirty bathroom floor, unable to think of anything else he possibly could do. (And, sure, he probably should have eaten it... Just in terms of survival. But he was not going to fucking chew and then swallow that piece of Sal while he was fucking looking at him.)
The urge to brush his teeth, wipe the blood away, throw up all the contents of his stomach, curl up and die, and... Fuck, apologize?? What does one do when in this situation? What does one do after they just caved in to the most horrific and inhuman of their desires? In front of the only person who had ever shown him a hint of fucking kindness? The only person whose scent that he had memorized due to it bringing comfort instead of fear?
And then he actually was going to throw up. He brought a hand to his blood-covered mouth as bile surged in the back of his throat, and then he was scrambling out of the bathroom; first on all fours, like the animal he was, as he tried to get his barings on the floor, then back on his two feet, right before reaching the door and sprinting the fuck out of there.
He had barely managed to leave the school (he was going anywhere, somewhere, just not fucking here) before he had fallen onto his knees in the grass outside and started throwing up. It's a vile burn of acid that leaves him feeling emptier and hungrier than he ever has, leaves him shivering and gasping and sweating so hard he can't tell if he's crying or not.
But at least it had gotten the taste of Sal out of his mouth.
Because the worst part was that Sal tasted fucking divine.