3 : Obscured
Scilius had been watching Elliot carefully for the duration of their first three periods. His eyes focused strongly on the curve of Elliot's smile, held firm upon his muzzle. As critical as Scilius could be, now with his renewed eyes, he still could not see the smile as anything else but genuine. Maybe Elliot was right. He might actually be okay.
Scilius rubbed his sore eyes. He was up all night after having that dreadful text conversation. He was only reading them from an iPhone at the time, so for all he knew, Elliot could have been knotting a rope while he texted "[I'm completely fine]." Scilius writhed in bed afterwards, concern eating him from the inside. Elliot's demeanor now, he thought, was promising. He even started this morning brandishing a wave and a hug to Scilius.
Even Cecil, resting his head upon his paw, was in a better mood. Scilius hadn't heard any insults or caustic comments from him all day. No, instead, Cecil's had a rather pleasant attitude, giving both Scilius and Elliot supportive smiles.
What grace, Scilius though. When he would be rejected, it took days of sulking to regain a more amiable attitude. Elliot has done it in less than 16 hours. If Elliot had anything to be upset about, it wasn't at all noticeable outside of his scales. Scilius obfuscated his way through writing assignments until a clattering bell filled the school, urging him and all the furs to get up. Elliot and Scilius started walking in their normal direction, leading to the staircase. Scilius was turning over in his mind, again and again, until he let a thought burst out.
"You're sure that you're okay, Elliot?" It caused Elliot to pause in his stride. Elliot rolled his eyes and flicked his tail.
"Yes, Scilly," he gave him that silvery smile again.
"You're not mad?"
"No," he rolled his eyes.
Scilius was still astounded. He'd imagined that most girls - or gay scales - would be overly and dramatically emotional over little things. This wasn't even little, this was a big thing, a horrible thing. What Scilius did was almost tantamount to using Elliot, even if Scilius hadn't been doing it intentionally.
"We're still friends?"
"Of course," Elliot nudged Scilius in the shoulder.
"And we can move on, then?"
"yes..."
"Like nothing happened."
Elliot skipped a beat, but kept his smile. "Uy - yeah." His snout had drifted, a sure sign of inner thought.
Scilius kept walking, not noticing his friend, and began to turn the corner, when Elliot awoke from his trance.
"Where're you going, Scilius?"
"What? The Staircase."
"We have the Math club meeting today, remember." Elliot's tail started waving.
"That's right."
Scilius had almost forgotten about Mu Alpha Theta in the confusion of last weekend with Elliot. He'd filled out an entire evaluation with Elliot, given by none other than Schrodinger himself. He believed that it was an opportunity to make new, and more interesting, friends. Not just any friends, Math club friends.
Like other Elliots: Hyper, smart, nerdy, and sexy... Scilius thought about his last word, where did that come from? They'd be better friends than the other furs in his class, for sure.
By the time Scilius and Elliot made it to Schrodinger's room, all the other Mathletes had arrived, at least, all the ones that would show up. Schrodinger invited five students from each grade level, Scilius had hypothesized, but there were only eight total students in the room with Schrodinger.
Cecil, already sitting in the room, Elliot and Scilius, of course, gladly signed up for Mu Alpha Theta, but the other two furs that had been invited in their class were not at all enthusiastic, and so there they weren't. There were only, then, three sophomores.
Across the room, two skinny and lean lions were sitting, interested only in the conversation being held between them. Both their name tags were exactly the same, and read "R. Anderson." They looked, aside from one of the twin's lighter toned mane, exactly the same. The Juniors.
In the front seats of the room, currently chatting with Schrodinger, were three students wearing sharp blue jackets, all keenly chatting with the teacher. One, a more heavy-set wolf, was twirling a pencil in his paws, another, a scrawny ferret with a very bad case of bed fur, was talking in high pitched chirps, and finally, a reptile. Light blue scales shimmered across her skin with a few white scales thrown in erratically. Her tail tossed smoothly, and she turned her snout as Scilius and Elliot walked through the door.
She's gorgeous, he thought, looking at her name tag: "M. Simmons." There were sharp curves lying under the folds of her sweater and a slender frame which her scales were built upon. Her very presence had seemed to call out to Scilius, who wasn't the only one to notice the new scale.
Elliot had saw her too, and along his snout, invisible to Scilius, the curve of his subconscious smile bent downward, for only a second, before Elliot's conscious mind adjusted it.
"Ahh, Scilius and Elliot, you're here. We can start."
The meeting was comprehensive, in Schrodinger's impressive and compressed manner. Every detail was discussed clearly, but shortly, and imprinted upon his students almost perfectly. Very much similar to how he would teach their classes.
Of course, everyone did well on their evaluations, some of the best work Schrodinger's seen. And, since everyone did so well, he wasn't going to let any one of his pupils not attend the tournament next Saturday, although he said they had the option not to go, and with that the option to have a C for their test average. Everyone, of course, had no objections against going.
And, as Schrodinger explained, there were two different challenges that all his students were entered in. The individual test, tailored to the grade level and full of what he called "easy problems." The other furs in the school, he assured them, wouldn't call them that. "But, I mean, Gauss would only get a couple wrong."
Then, there was a group test, with problems from Algebra II to Calculus, and each group was only allowed to have up to three members. Only one student who took Calculus was allowed in each group submitted.
The Juniors and Seniors listened as Schrodinger's instructions were a song that they heard on the radio thousands of times.
Of course, the evaluations are what determined, for Schrodinger, what the groups would be. The first group, he called out, was Cecil, Ryan, the first tiger twin, and Tom, the heavy set wolf. Elliot was put in a group with the other twin, Robin, and the ferret Zach. Scilius smiled and Elliot's grin twitched when they both realized who was left. Scilius and Maryan, the blue-scale, were in a group by themselves, because, Schrodinger explained, they did the best on their evaluations.
"Of course, you all did excellent on your evaluations," Shcrodinger added, although Cecil could notice Schrodinger giving uncertain looks to him and Tom.
Alone with her, Scilius thought. He had actually, unintentionally, been staring at her for the duration of Schrodinger's short lecture. No, I can't do that. He looked at Elliot. He wouldn't be all right with that.
"That's all, I'll have practice sheets soon. Oh, and Scilius, you have a test to make up tomorrow, from your shedding week." Schrodinger patted him on the back as he tried to escort all his students out of his classroom.
Scilius, with Elliot trying to follow behind him, walked behind Maryan, who was dashing down the hallway with the Tom and Zach, in their senior triad. Elliot, however, grabbed him by the shoulder before he could turn a corner behind the three.
"You're going the wrong way, again." Elliot said.
"Oh, yeah," Scilius turned the other direction, and followed Elliot, almost begrudgingly, back to their normal spot by the staircase.I'll find her later.
Cecil and Elliot sat next to each other by the staircase. While Cecil was muzzle deep in a book, Elliot had been penciling something into a sketchpad, moving quicker and more rapidly than he usually would. Scilius sat adjacent to them, holding a notebook and pen in his lap, not for actual note taking, but instead just to blend with his two friends.
While Scilius had been thinking, he unconsciously wrote into his notepad. When he looked down, his thoughts being broken, he met with the same thing written seven times in light and inattentive strokes: "Maryan." She had already gotten under Scilius' scales. He would've thought more about her, until he heard Elliot swear when he broke the lead of his pencil.
Scilius wasn't sure if what he was doing would be inherently wrong.Am I being crass? Is Elliot okay? Scilius looked at how Elliot's tail still idly tossed and how his smile still looked genuine. He might not have noticed the slight shaking in Elliot's claws.
They decided that they'd just be friends. Good friends, moving on, no hard feelings. However, when Scilius had tried to follow Maryan down the hallway, and Elliot pulled him back, Scilius saw a glare in Elliot's eyes. From the same golden eyes that convinced Scilius to let Elliot stay over at his house the previous weekend.
Scilius couldn't rationalize it to himself, either. He knew that it had only been - he checked his watch - 19 hours ago that he broke up with Elliot. He had only seen Maryan less than 20 minutes ago.Is there a rule against that? It is fast, though. Elliot was in bed with me just two days ago.
Scilius put his pen down,I can wait a little while, I'll get my chance with Maryan soon enough. This weekend, that'll be the perfect time. Elliot broke another lead, this time with a louder curse.
Scilius looked up, and this time, scooted over to Elliot's side, notebook still in his lap, so that he could properly see what he was drawing with such heavy strokes. There was a reptilian skull drawn proportionally, complete with a set of guidelines and circles made with lighter and more erratic strokes underneath. Elliot was erasing an erroneous stroke made by the breaking lead.
"Looks nice. Anatomy?"
Elliot looked shocked, and then happy, that Scilius had noticed his drawing. He looked up, and in his sweet raspy voice, replied:
"Sort of, and what are you - " Elliot looked down into the open notebook still held in Scilius' lap, and his breath paused.
"Oh, I was - " Scilius was at a loss for how to explain himself. But, while he feared the worst from Elliot, he just started laughing.
"Are you serious!" Elliot cackled. It was infectious, and Scilius joined in, relieved.
Cecil lost his focus while reading and looked over, seeing both the scales giggling and hissing with red snouts.
"What are you two on about?"
"Nothing," Elliot said confidently, "n - nothing," Scilius parroted.
"I'm going to the library, then," Cecil emphasized his book in hand, and walked off, giving an audible scoff as he did so.
"You haven't told him that we're - you know."
"No," Elliot jabbed, "but he'll figure it out. I'm surprised he hasn't seen you sniffing around Maryan."
Scilius blushed. "You could tell?"
"You're not subtle," he smiled at Scilius. "You're aiming high, though. A senior? Is that going to work?"
"Probably not, I don't have much luck with women." Scilius spoke with an upright tone, almost cheerful.
"Are you going to tell her about your failed experiment?" Elliot had a devious grin on his snout.
Experiment, he thought. Wait, to Elliot, everything Scilius had done was intentional; he thought Scilius was fully aware that he had been locking snouts with a male. Scilius, of course, actually did not know. He was just blind enough to be fooled by Elliot's feminine voice. Of course, Elliot thinks I was just experimenting.
"No," he said with a faint laugh.Should I tell him that I thought he was a girl? That might insult him. He thought it over, and decided against it.
"Girls like gay guys." Elliot added. Scilius didn't ask where he had gotten that information.
"They like them as toys, not dates."
Elliot laughed.
"No, I kind'a just want to forget about it." Scilius pondered out loud.
Elliot stopped laughing. Something in his head had sparked. His claws started shaking a little more.
"Yeah, that's fine."
There was a small amount of silence that followed, with just a drop of awkwardness. Elliot and Scilius both dropped into though, while Elliot's claws started jittering quicker. Scilius didn't notice, looking straight forward and tapping his pen.
"Scilius!" Elliot called out, abruptly and dramatically.
While Scilius turned his head, Elliot planted a claw on one of his, and placed the other tight behind Scilius' head, claws feeling behind his horns, pulling him closer. Elliot's snout met Scilius' forcibly, and although Scilius didn't resist, at all, Elliot clamped down tight on Scilius' lips.
When Elliot pulled away, they had both been left breathless. Scilius had an astonished look left on his snout, as his jaw was left dropped nearly to his chest. When Scilius looked at Elliot's expression, however, he found a deeper look. His eyes were wide and twitched, and his silver snout tremored as it slid back closed. Scilius thought he could almost hear Elliot's expression saying "I'll never get to do that again."
"I'm sorry," Elliot did say, in a hiss.
"Wait, Elliot - "
Elliot leaped up and grabbed his bag. Before Scilius could stop him, and give him some kind of calming pleasantry, the bell rang. Elliot darted off to his French class, leaving Scilius standing alone in the staircase. While Scilius trudged to his own Latin class, he felt ashamed of himself. Elliot's eyes were burnt into his vision.
Elliot had been smiling, by the end of the day. It was the same, genuine smile Scilius could always trust to be on his snout.
"Sorry about that," he told Scilius.
"Don't worry about it." Scilius wanted to say that it was his own fault, but he didn't.
"And, good luck with Maryan."
"Thanks."
Cecil walked by them on the sidewalk, heading to his house. He was expecting Elliot to walk home with Scilius again, but was surprised when Elliot waved to him.
"Wait up, I'll be there in a sec.'"
Elliot turned to Scilius, eyes wide and shining, and lunged to wrap his arms around him. It was just a hug, that's all Elliot intended, but Scilius had backed away, just enough to make Elliot's grasp awkward. Scilius had almost pushed him away, and that had noticeably put Elliot off.
"My bad," he said with an almost acidic hiss, pushing himself away from Scilius almost dramatically.
Elliot walked off before Scilius could say anything. He met with Cecil and was chatting more cheerfully with him. Scilius walked home by himself, with heavy thoughts.
He sprawled onto his bed immediately after entering his house, heated by the cushions, and drifted off into sleep.
He saw a blurry silver figure with two golden eyes sitting directly across from him. For some reason, it was almost incepted into him that the figure was female. The blur lurched closer and closer. Finally, their Snouts met, along with the touch of their claws. When Scilius pulled away he heard flowing from the figure in a sweet tone, "Scilly..."
He opened his eyes, feeling warmer. The clock had danced a few steps forward. Shaking it off, he closed his eyes again.
He felt something wrapped around his chest, firmly and tightly squeezing him, with bare scales. His eyes opened to a clear image of Elliot nuzzling into his chest, his golden eyes illuminated. He closed his eyes and opened them again.
New and more tangible light filled his eyes, and he found that there was no Elliot wrapped around him. He was still alone in his bed. He rubbed his eyes and shifted around.
He saw Elliot again, nervously looking at him. Elliot jumped, again, grabbing him and pressing their muzzles together. Scilius pressed back this time, eagerly.
He opened his eyes for a third time to find his tooth caught in a pillow. Stop thinking about it. He felt afraid to close his eyes again. But, even while he lied awake, eyes stretched open, he could still see Elliot. Elliot's indignant voice kept ringing in his head.
"My bad..."