Chapter Text
When Calvin was 6 years old, he watched a boy named Tommy Chestnut get eaten behind the slides.
It didn’t take long, and the mess was easily hidden under the playground’s woodchips. Tigers are quite large, and 6-year-old bullies are terribly small.
And then no one in his elementary class remembered Tommy Chestnut, and no one remembered the boy’s mean comments about Calvin’s stuffed tiger.
Every once in a while, Calvin mentioned Tommy Chestnut by name, wondering if anyone would recognize it. Wondering if anyone noticed his seat was empty, or that he still had a handprint-flower with his name on it, taped beside the chalkboard.
But no one did.
The flower was never touched, even when everyone else’s seasonal projects were replaced with trees, then colorful turkeys. A single red flower, untouched in the corner of a sea of cut-paper snowflakes.
His classmate’s face never appeared in missing posters.
And Tommy Chestnut’s parents never came to pick him up that day, anyway.
Start over-
Calvin was 15. He was a freshman in highschool, and hated it.
He was well aware that bringing toys to school at this age was childish, and wouldn’t make him many friends. Teenagers were often petrified of seeming childish .
He was also aware that he already had no real friends, and figured the habit of keeping an “imaginary” one on-hand was a decent way to endure the endless monotony of existence.
Plus, Hobbes would sneak into his backpack whether he liked it or not.
Introductions had come and gone. The first week, second week, third week of school had come and gone - time and people slipping past like someone had hit “fast forward” on one of his dad’s old VHS tapes.
He ate his lunches with Hobbes, keeping a can of tuna and a can opener stored in his locker in case his friend ever got hungry.
Classes were boring, but he couldn’t bring himself to raise his hand to sass back anymore. Spent most of his last period daydreaming about ants crawling over his desk, instead of listening to whatever geometry lecture was being given.
They captured a fly that had been buzzing around his hand, and pulled it into component parts to arrange across his desk.
When the teacher walked by, one of the fly's transparent wings fluttered away in the small breeze, vanishing somewhere on the dirty classroom floor.
When Calvin was 12, he goofed off and made some friends, playing pranks and imagination games. They came to his house to fire bottle rockets into the sky, and invited him to birthday parties. He really thought things were looking up.
That people could be… good, actually.
And then some brat decided it’d be a great idea to steal Hobbes from him in front of everyone, taunting him again for “bringing his teddy to school like a baby.” He knew Hobbes tried not to show himself in front of people, so Calvin tried deescalating things. Bargaining. Asking nicely. Playing along and laughing with the others as he was battered by insults.
He had made friends, and watching a kid get eaten wasn’t very funny, now that he understood what that meant.
But then the kid tore a hole in Hobbes’ side with his fingers. Started pulling his stuffing out and ripping the hole wider, so of course Calvin smashed a rock into his head.
Twice.
He was suspended, held back a year, put through therapy that first tried to convince him that violence was never the answer… and eventually pivoted to trying to convince him that Hobbes wasn’t real , that destroying property wasn't the same as hurting someone, and all those things they’d done together were things that Calvin had done alone . As if Calvin could gag and tie himself up, or get himself up on the roof at 6 years old without a ladder.
Or tackle himself out the front door.
He had a couple scars on his back and elbows, from rough landings on the steps outside, but they thought he did that to himself.
Hobbes was as fake as the moon landing.
And Calvin didn’t have friends anymore.
The tiger didn’t come out as much these days, sleeping through class as much as Calvin wanted to. Hobbes claimed it was his old age catching up with him.
Calvin quietly wondered if his old friend was tired of him.
Wondered if one day he’d wake up and the stuffed animal would just be… normal fabric, life drained out like a leaky sieve because the stitches he’d used to repair the stuffed body weren’t good enough.
Winter started early this year.
He imagined starving foxes trudging through falling snow, snapping after gaunt hares with rolling black eyes.
When Friday’s last bell finally rang, he carried the daydream on his walk home, watching slush slump out under his shoes, and between the splayed paws of hungry canids prowling beside him.
The foxes were technologically advanced, of course. They had a secret underground base that was a maze of tunnels and glowing mushrooms whose roots could transmit messages that one might whisper into the gills. Foxes still needed meat, and their food stores had flooded and spoiled from the summer storms. Desperation drove them after winter hares, who stood up like people and wielded long thorns like daggers.
He watched two of them race across the sidewalk, leaping upon each other ferociously. Fox blood sprayed across the neighbor's fence as the hare bit him hard on the nose and it took thrashing his head to get free. The hare looked downright spooky with blood in the crease of its mouth.
Who would keep their life in a battle of desperate hunger versus cunning? How would anyone track what was happening, when it was white teeth biting into white fur, and white claws kicking into a white belly. A whirlwind of-
Splat!
Calvin stopped, reaching back to touch the dripping wet spot on the back of his head.
It was cold, and sore, and clumpy wet ice dropped back down the back of his shirt.
Slushball.
Mikey laughed uproariously, high-fiving his little brother before the two of them scrambled to scoop together another slushball to pelt him with.
Dylan and Mikey were 5, and 6, half his height, and Hobbes said the green plastic crab always sitting out in the yard was like him . An imaginary friend of one of the boys. Maybe it was for both of them combined into one determined crustacean.
The crab never revealed itself to him, and Hobbes didn’t bring it up after that first offhand mention.
“Put a rock in the middle this time!” The younger boy looked unrepentant at being overheard, grinning at Calvin’s offended expression.
He felt a brief flash of a there-and-gone urge to grab the boys and fling them bodily into a, muddy slush pile that had developed in the corner of their yard. To stomp up and smash the crab under his boot.
At least he’d deserve the rock, then.
Calvin scowled at them and continued walking toward his house, satisfied when the next thrown slushball whirled itself to pieces mid-air before it could hit him.
Mikey was the noisy baby down the road when he was younger, had grown into a noisy little terror. Whenever Calvin complained about the boy throwing mud or stones, or singing vulgar rhymes at him, his parents just said he was finally getting a taste of his own medicine. That Calvin had acted just like that as a little kid.
If that was true, he wondered absently why no one had ever thrown him into a woodchipper.
When he got home and dumped his bag out on the kitchen table, he realized there was a dark brown spot on Hobbes’ paw. He frowned and brought Hobbes to the sink to carefully scrub it off.
“How’d you get mud on you, anyway?” He muttered, and adjusted his grip to continue scrubbing when Hobbes materialized in his larger form.
“I'm going to get it with my tongue, you know. Soap tastes so weird to get out.”
“Sure, but I get blamed if you track mud in the house.”
The amused huff of Hobbes’ breath stirred his hair, and Calvin carefully picked dirt and bark crumbs out from around the tiger’s pale claws.
“Still taking walks without me?” He wondered aloud, wishing his heart didn’t ache to ask it.
His friend hummed agreement.
“Sometimes, when you’re sleeping. Rats to pounce on, trees to scratch, you know how it is.”
“Want to take a walk now?”
“You have homework, don't you?”
Calvin held his friend’s white paw under the tap, watching the stream of water through fur. He remembered long afternoons spent exploring the woods behind the house, catching bugs in the creek. Hours spent watching the clouds through a canopy of breeze-stirred leaves.
“I can skip it.”
“Not today, I think.” Hobbes reached up to hide a huge yawn, ears pinning back until his mouth snapped shut. “I should take a nap.”
Calvin flicked the tap off and grabbed a towel to rub the fur dry. Frustration and resentment coiled poisonously in his guts.
“You’ll fuck up your sleep schedule, napping during the day.”
“Well, tigers are nocturnal. We’re experts at cat-naps.”
Calvin shook the towel out and shoved it back over the oven handle to dry.
“When you’re done, wanna watch TV together?”
Hobbes nodded, and Calvin tried not to show how relieved he was.
He did as much of his geometry homework as he could understand (not a lot) and then sat down with a bowl of leftover chili to watch the latest episode of some discovery channel rerun about beetles.
He didn’t realize how tense he still was until Hobbes joined him on the couch, lithe feline body draping across legs that had become increasingly lanky as he grew taller.
Hobbes dropped his heavy head against Calvin’s shoulder, whiskers tickling his throat.
Calvin dozed to the deep voice of a narrator describing tropical beetle shells, and the low rumble of a tiger purr.
When his mom got back from her part-time job, Calvin greeted her sleepily, put away his bowl, then ambled upstairs to his bedroom to roll under the covers.
Hobbes curled up on his legs, the tips of his hairs highlighted silver by beams of moonlight spilling in through the closed window.
Calvin drifted off to sleep.
When he woke up in the morning, the window was open, just a crack. A breeze stirred his curtains, and his room was cold.
Calvin groaned, pulling his pillow over his face.
“It’s winter, Hobbes. You can’t leave the window open.”
Said window opened a little more and then slid shut.
Weight pressed into his legs, and the smell of pine needles and wet dirt wafted to his nose despite the half-hearted attempt to smother himself with a pillow.
“You better not be getting mud on my blankets.” He grumbled, curling up into a little ball to conserve warmth.
The weight climbed off him, and the faucet down the hall began running,
Calvin sat up to blearily inspect his bed for paw-prints, then rolled off the bed to stagger to the bathroom.
Hobbes got the dirt off his own feet while Calvin brushed his teeth.
He paused at the color coming off in the sink.
“Is that blood ?”
Hobbes laughed at his disgusted voice.
“It’s just from a rat I found creeping around the house. Not very tasty” the tiger licked his lips, tail flicking in amusement as Calvin pretended to retch into the toilet.
Once clean and dry again, Hobbes leapt up into the air and flopped into Calvin’s arms. Calvin nearly buckled under the weight at first, then tucked him under his elbow like a football once he felt more manageable. He ignored the mental cries of how undignified it was to do that to him. How awful a teenage boy’s armpit smelled.
He was halfway through pouring milk on his cereal when someone started hammering knocks on the front door and bell. Mom sighed from the kitchen table, adjusting her sweatshirt and pants before shuffling over to answer it.
As soon as Mom opened the door, the lady from down the street barged in.
“Have you seen Mikey?” Then, without waiting, she yelled “MIKEY!” At the top of her lungs, eyes darting wildly around as she waited for a response. Calvin winced at the loud noise, and rubbed at his ear. He heard footsteps as his dad started descending the stairs.
“I haven’t seen him.” Mom finally replied, raking unbrushed hair out of her own eyes. “When did you have him last?”
“I thought he was in bed when I got home from work. But there was just a lump of blankets this morning. He could have been out all night! I saw tracks in the snow leading toward your house, so I thought…”
The woman’s voice cut out in a sob, and Mom gathered her up in a rocking hug.
“We’ll help you look. Honey!” She called, but Dad was already at the bottom of the stairs, robe wrapped tightly around him.
“Honey, call the police. Mikey had been missing all night.” Dad’s eyebrows shot up, and he hurried toward the house phone’s port on the wall.
“Did anyone else see him yesterday?”
The woman shook her head, shaking hands hovering in front of her chin like she wanted to cover her face, but couldn’t bear to stop looking around the room for him.
“He and Dylan had a cold yesterday, I thought they’d spend all day sleeping. I just ran to the store for a couple hours, but Mikey’s gone , and Dylan says he’s been too sick to remember and doesn’t know where or when he could have gone.”
The rambling was interspersed with a parent’s fearful noises, and Mom kept stroking her back.
Calvin felt…
Bad, probably.
Also, that Dylan was a smelly liar.
“Mikey nailed me with a slushball yesterday.” He admitted to the room between bites of cereal.
Dad’s head swiveled to face him.
“What time?”
Calvin thought back to the timeline. School got out at 3:30. Takes about 20 minutes to walk home. Beetle Planet starts at 4:30pm, every day.
“Around 4pm, give or take 10 minutes or so-ACK!” Calvin tried hard not to slosh sugary milk on his dad as the man swept him up in a hug.
“Every detail helps” Dad murmured into his hair, giving one last squeeze before letting him down.
“Alright,” Dad announced, standing up again with stern determination etched in around his frown. “I’ll call the police and get a hunt started, Honey, can you round up the neighbors? Karen, Calvin and I will start following the trail.”
Calvin finished his cereal, trying not to feel too annoyed that his Saturday morning would be spent hiking around in the cold, instead of watching cartoons or doing something fun.
Hobbes had elected to stay inside the house, the traitor.
His mom gave him a walkie-talkie to stay in contact, but Dad had him walk at his side anyway.
There was, indeed, a set of footprints in the half-frozen slush that led from their house to their neighbor’s. It paced a bit under the eaves, left long shapes in the mud like someone had laid down, and then continued out toward the woods.
“I know you spent a lot of time in the woods, Calvin.” His dad murmured as they finished the hike across their backyard and crossed the treeline. "I’m depending on you to notice anything out of place. Broken branches, or stuff where it shouldn’t be.”
Calvin tried not to think about Mikey hanging out under his window while he slept. Weird kid.
Dad and Mikey’s Mom kept calling the kid's name as the three of them pressed into the woods, following scrapes in the mud and small trails where patches of weeds had been frosted over, and someone crushed through them.
He recognized the trees, old paths long familiar, even if he hadn’t visited in the while. They’d be close to his old tree fort, soon.
The sun was starting to rise, and all the frost and frozen slush began to glitter brightly.
Calvin paused, lingering at a frozen footstep as the two adults forged onward.
He pressed his own boot down next to the print to compare them.
It was… bigger than his, by a little.
He stepped there, and stretched out his other leg so he could feel the stride of the next boot-print. He actually had to stretch. to reach it.
Mikey was a little kid. He wouldn’t have been able to take footsteps this far apart, even if he was wearing his mom’s winter boots. Whoever made these prints was big. Really tall, to have legs that long.
Frost bloomed in his gut, even as it melted under morning sunlight all around him.
Calvin swallowed past a suddenly dry throat.
Ahead, Dad and Mikey’s mom had stopped to talk.
“Hey Dad!” Calvin called out, but his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and skipped up into a run to get to his dad’s side faster.
“Dad-” He started, reaching to grab at his coat sleeve and tell him what he’d discovered, but Mikey’s mom was smiling at him.
“Hello Calvin! Out for a walk with your father?”
He stared at her, bewildered.
His Dad laughed, ruffling his hair with a mitten.
“Calvin’s always running around out here, but I can’t keep up these days. We got walkie-talkies, just in case he scurries off without me.”
“Oh, that’s such a good idea!” She laughed, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I should do that with Dylan.”
Calvin turned to look up at his dad - at the easy, relaxed expression on his face. His breath caught with sudden dread
“What about Mikey?” Calvin asked, ears ringing as his pulse pounded thick and rough under his jaw. Mikey’s mom tilted her head and gave him a puzzled smile.
“Who’s Mikey?”