Responsibilities-Part Two
Responsibilities
Part Two
The sight of the cub coughing was a bit too much for Christian to hold back his own nature. He quickly swooped in towards Eric and tugged at his shoulder, leading him back to the couch where he had set up camp. The coffee table in front of his couch was littered with different cough and cold medicines along with Eric's personal stuff. Christian looked over the different papers and books on the table as he sat the cub on the couch before sitting down himself. They were all mostly schoolbooks, some of them of subjects that he did not even take until high school.
"Heh, linear inequalities? Arn't you a little young to be playing with those?" Christian asked as he picked up the papers and started to check the work.
"I don't think so. My parents say I'm gifted." Eric said without a hint of boasting, but rather, with a little bit of disappointment in his tone.
"Certainly." The fox said as he saw that most of the answers were correct, though, terribly written. "You definitely have a knack for these things, though, you spent too much time on this problem."
Christian shared a couple of his shortcuts with the cub, showing him how to solve some of the problems in a quarter of the time by using his methods. The fox kept looking back at the cub to make sure that he was getting it instead of mindlessly bobbing his head up and down. Surprisingly, Eric was far beyond his years in understanding the shortcut that the fox was presenting him with, announcing the rules to the shortcuts before the older boy could even mention that the shortcut even had rules to it.
"That's great!" He said triumphantly, amazed that the cub was able to understand everything that he had just taught him.
Christian gave a wide dorky grin at the cub just as he gave a wide grin back to him. His large ears were perked up into the air, something that rarely happened for the fox. The sound of their tails wagging back and forth against the couch filled the room. Eric looked like he was about to say something, but before he could Christian's father walked into the room.
"You guys having fun?" He asked as he walked around the couch and looked to see what they were doing.
"Yeah! Christian just showed me a really cool math shortcut." Eric exclaimed.
The older fox gave the two a weird look, cocking his head to the side on confusion before saying with a weak chuckle. "A cool math shortcut? I don't think I'd ever expect to hear the word cool and math combined in a sentence. Here."
Christian's dad shuffled through the papers and books on the coffee table, pushing them to the side carelessly until he found what he was looking for. He grabbed hold of a remote, messing around with it until the sound system, TV, and receiver turned on. It took several tries, having too many different devices tied to the remote to know which button turned on which device. The lights to the room were flickering on and off until he was able to find the right buttons to set up everything.
"Here. We have Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Cable, HBO, Showtime, and even Starz." He said as he passed the remote to his son and gave him a wink. "I'm sure you guys will find something entertaining."
Christian flinched wildly as remote was passed to him and avoiding it enough for it to hit the couch cushion without injuring him. He pretended to not hear the audible sigh of his father and, most likely, the combined sigh from every father on the planet from the weak display.
"Thanks Dad. You guys leaving?" He asked, holding back his tone as best he could.
"Yup. Packed the car and everything. Gotta get out of here before the storm kicks in. Speaking of which, Eric is not allowed to play outside. Too cold. You have any problems, you have my number and your mom's number." He gave a pause before pulling out Christian's cell phone. "And I programmed your phone with the hotel's number, Eric's mom's number, Eric's dad's number, Eric's brother's number, the number to their house, the number to your school, the number to the airport, the number to your doctor, the-"
"Dad! Dad! I got it." Christian said, waving his paw to get him to stop. "I don't think we'll need all those numbers."
"Right, well, I put them in anyways." He said getting ready to toss his son's cell phone over to him, but stopping just before he could. His heart was not strong enough to watch his son dodge a small electronic device as though it were a missile twice in a row.
"Oh, and somebody sent a text to you asking for your address." Christian's father said as he walked up to his son and put the phone on the coffee table. "Somebody named Trevor. Boyfriend?"
Christian could never tell what his dad meant every time he asked that question whenever the fox had been doing anything with another boy. Did his father really think that he was going out with anything that had a dick, or was he just joking every time that he said it. Christian was out of the closet with his parents, though, the fox hated to think of why his parents accepted it so readily. He liked to think that they were just very open minded, but there was always the possibility that they came to accept it because they thought he had no chance with a girl.
"No Dad!" The fox said as he turned to the wolf cub, who was working on a problem trying the new method that he learned. "Just someone who needs help with math."
"Right. Anyways, we're heading out. Left some coupons on the table for pizza." Christian's dad leaned into his son and gave him a kiss right between his ears. Of course, Eric had looked up just in time to catch it.
"Dad! We'll be fine." He said, trying to duck away from the kiss but not moving fast enough. The sight made the wolf cub giggle before going back to his homework.
Christian's dad quickly picked up his suitcase and waved goodbye to the two before heading out the door. The sound of the car taking off was interrupted by the sound of Christian texting on his cell phone. He gave the bear his address and asked him what time he was coming over. The prospects of having some sexual encounter like he read in the online stories had shrunk into nothing, but he might as well help him with the math work. Maybe something could come out of it when there was not a cub in the house to cock block him.
"Can we order the pizza now?" Eric asked loudly, sending himself into another coughing fit.
"Well, I think I'm supposed to order it tomorrow night or when you're better or something." Christian said, giving the cub a look to see his reaction. The wolf cub's perky smile turned into a frown and his ears pushed up against his head in disappointment. "But, I'm not in the mood to cook anything. You like sausage?"
Eric's back and forth change in attitude never grew weary as he went straight back into a happy pup mood. "I want veggies!"
"Veggies? You don't like meat?" Christian said as he dove into the cub and pretended to eat him, getting the cub to laugh hysterically.
Christian ordered the pizza and took his father's advice. No matter how fun math was to him, he knew that the cub could definitely do a lot better if he was focusing less on work and more on something that required no work. The fox flicked through the Netflix, trying to find something that the cub would like. He must have gone through all of the current cartoons, each one getting the same answer from the cub.
"Nope, I don't like that show." He said as he presented the cub with another cartoon show that kids his age should like. Christian thought it was a retarded show, but he was too old to like any of the shows anyways.
"Fine, I give up. What kid shows do you watch?" He asked as he gave the cub a weird glance.
"I'm not a kid and I don't like cartoons." He said defensively before adding in a much less defensive tone and more curious instead. "At least, I don't get to watch them. My parents say they are bad for your brain." The wolf cub confessed, rubbing his paws together nervously as though he was afraid the fox was going to judge him harshly.
"Well, they're not the most intellectual of things, but they can be a lot of fun. Here, let me show you some of the stuff I watched as a kid." Christian said as he went through the list of kid's shows until he found some of the toony stuff that he remembered watching.
The fox was worried about the cub as he was sent into several coughing fits from laughing too hard. The cub especially loved the various crazy attempts of the cartoon coyote trying to catch the roadrunner with no success. Christian could not help himself but to laugh at the cartoons as well, though, partially at the cub too. He never saw someone enjoy the show as much as he did, probably from never seeing a cartoon up until this moment. Though, the fox was glad that the wolf was enjoying himself so far.
"What're you looking at?" Eric asked with his muzzle wrinkled up a little bit in confusion.
"What? Oh, uh, nothing." Christian said, surprised that he had been staring that long. "I just tend to space out."
Eric rubbed his paws together underneath the blanket and thought over what he wanted to say to Christian, holding back a bit before deciding on the right words. "It's alright if you were-"
The sound of the doorbell cut off the cub before he could finish his sentence, and the oblivious fox was already getting up off of his seat on the couch. "Hold that thought. Pizza time!"
Christian hurried his way to the door, looking forward to the pizza, despite his earlier grumbling of how he had not gotten excited about pizza since he was a cub. The fox usually kept his lunches small during the day to avoid spending much time in the cafeteria. It was awkward for him to eat alone and the less he ate, the less he had to spend time eating alone. Even the thought of a vegetable pizza sounded quite amazing too him.
"What's the total?" Christian asked, having a hand full of cash ready.
"What's the total?" Trevor asked back in confusion.
"Oh! It's you." Christian said, almost completely forgetting that he had company coming.
"What? Forget about me?" The bear said, walking right past the fox with his school bag in his paws.
Though Christian's height was a bit larger than the average student's, he was still a couple inches shorter than the bear. Even if he was the same height as Trevor though, Christian still would have been at least a hundred pounds lighter than him. So the fox was helpless to let the bear walk into the hallway, taking a step to the side and flicking his ears back in a submissive gesture. The bear walked into the hallway and heard the noise coming from the living room.
"Are you watching cartoons?" Trevor asked, speaking his mind with little restraint.
Before Christian could even answer, Eric poked his head up from the couch and gave the bear a questioning look.
"Who are you?" The wolf cub said, not sounding too thrilled to see the guest.
"You hang out with kids and watch cartoons?" Trevor said, again, with no real consideration in his tone and even a hint of amusement paired with it.
"Hey, I'm not a kid. I'm twelve." Eric said, stretching himself out on the couch and giving a stern look to the bear.
"Eric, this is my classmate, Trevor, who needs a little bit of help with math. Trevor, this is my neighbor, Eric, who I'm baby-err, watching for the weekend because he's a little bit sick." Christian said, cutting himself off from saying babysitting.
Christian could tell that Eric was a little hot headed from not being able to go on vacation with his family and from being sick. Not to mention that he was not liking Trevor from the bear's rampant invasion and arrogant insults. It would be best not to refer to him as a baby, and keep it to something simple, like watching.
"Yeah, whatever. You ready to teach me some math?" Trevor said, ignoring the boy's glare.
Trevor was already heading in the living room himself, placing his bag down on the side of the couch furthest from the little wolf boy and helping himself to a seat on the couch. Christian, a bit stunned from taking in everything at once, took a second to close the door behind him and enter the living room. Eric seemed to cool down now that the fox was back in the room with him.
"Yeah, this should be fun. Eric is also doing some math too, so he can maybe help a little bit." Christian said, hoping that making a connection between the two would make things a bit easier all around.
"Heh, right." Trevor said, elongating the 'ight' part, in his disbelief that a cub could help him with math.
Eric ignored the bear, not wanting to have anything to do with him and instead focused straight on the cartoons again. Christian sat himself between the two, wanting to create as much distance between them as possible at this point. Trevor grabbed his books and papers from his bag and placed them on the table, pushing aside the wolf's work until it was almost hanging off of the edge of the coffee table. He heard something fall onto the floor and sighed, but did not bother to say anything to the bear or pick up whatever fell on the floor, still too nervous to speak his mind.
"Alright, so what's on the schedule?" Trevor asked, flipping through a couple of the pages on his book mindlessly.
"Um, well, most of the notes that we took today is stuff that we'll be doing in the homework. Why don't you show me what you have written down already, and we'll work with that." Christian said, making himself comfortable in his seat.
"Yeah, about that. I think I left my notes at home." Trevor said, giving a quick check in his bag to see if his imaginary notes were in there.
"Oh, yeah, right." Christian said, forgetting that the bear did not take any notes in class.
"Well, you're a nerd, so you know everything anyways." Trevor said, pulling out a pen and getting ready to write.
"Right, I guess I can see what I can do." The fox said, annoyed at the amount of work that he would have to put into it.
The fox rubbed his temples together as he tried to explain the basics of a linear equation to the bear. Christian could tell that he was not just dealing with today's lack of note taking, but perhaps, weeks of information. Christian found himself wanting to bang his head on the coffee table from the insanity of explaining what a slope was, and why a lack of one would create a vertical line. He did not even want to think of the insanity of explaining a horizontal line to the bear. Before he could get to that point though, the doorbell rang.
"Break time!" Christian said, getting up quickly before the bear had any other questions on basic math for him.
Christian slowly made his way to the door, trying to buy himself as much time away from the bear as possible. He asked for the total, knowing full well what it was and slowly counted the cash that he had in his hands. The mouse pizza driver looked like he was going to throw a fit by the time that he finished counting the change. As soon as the mouse got his money, he quickly started walking back to his care, despite Christian trying to start up a conversation with him. He groaned as he slowly started to walk back towards the room with the pizza in his hand.
"Hey! Change it back!" Eric shouted, almost sending himself into another coughing fit as he yelled at the bear.
"C'mon, kid. It's just cartoons. Besides, you're way too old to be watching stuff like that." Trevor yelled back, getting into a shouting match with the cub.
Christian growled, not wanting to deal with either of the two anymore and just wished that he could have just spent the weekend alone at this point.