PA 3.5: End of a Tail

Purrfect Apawcalypse: Spectrofurobia! Chapter 3

"Y-You..." Patches croaked out, voice hoarse from going unused for so long. He felt his claws dig into his paw pads, drawing blood that slid down the sharp appendages and into his fur. "You're just pissy he'd rather date me, than a self-absorbed invalid like you."

Whisk leaned back, handsome smirk scrunching like a crushed soda can. He raised his arm and paw, faking a slap to make Patches flinch so he could laugh at him.

Patches did more than flinch.

With a "GRRAHH!" of effort and a sizzling zap ringing in the air, the deed had been done as quickly as it had been imagined. Blood stained the cat's right claw, bits of fur and flakes of skin stuck near its base- he had sunk the whole inch into Whisk's face, and the effects were immediate.

Whisk stumbled back, clutching at the side of his bleeding head with his left paw, eyes like radar dishes. The skin on his left eye down to his jaw had been torn with two large gashes and one small one- cleaving through fur, skin, capillaries, and muscles. Ichor dripped onto the floor as gasps rang throughout the halls, and a few students fainted at seeing the paw-full of blood dripping from his face to his uniform or onto the floor.

"Y-You bitch!" Whisk cried, losing his will as pain threatened to overwhelm him.

Patches stood triumphantly, smirking and giggling, before the shock from the collar caught up to him, and he slammed his back against a locker, resting on it until his body stopped throbbing.

Self-preservation took over the siamese, and he rushed down the hall in a speed-walk, tail spiked upward behind himself as he marched to the nurse's office.

---

A light shock powered spiral gears, pushing and rotating them with a rhythmic clicking sound, pushing the little hand of the clock forward every two seconds short of a minute.

It kept Patches off of his work, even as he read the insultingly easy algebraic question over and over- it just passed entirely through his mind. How long had that clock been off? Why had nobody ever thought to correct it? Even if it wasn't that big of an issue, it was something his mind could gnaw on- something to blow out of proportion so he could complain.

His eyes swivelled to the side as he heard a clattering, and a pencil rolled itself over to his side, tapping against his foot before stopping.

He ignored the thing, content to answer the work he had been given as punishment, even as he felt the uncomfortably wide gaze of the turkish van he had been sat next to.

"H-Hey," they wheezed out.

He chose to ignore it. An awkward length of time passed as he answered two of the three-dozen questions on the page, and then the cat spoke up again.

"Um, heyyy, could-"

The cat stopped when she realized Patches had been dully staring at her for the last two seconds. She kept her mouth open, confused and startled by the cold intent in his features. When, again, she lingered in the silence for too long, Patches shut his eyes and sighed. He returned to the worksheet as he watched the cat stare at hers from the corner of his vision, trying to bore answers into the sheet by staring at them, terrified.

Patches rolled his eyes. He grasped the left side of his desk, leaning down and plucking it from the floor with his claws. Patches flicked it onto the cat's table like a dirty sock, returning their meek gaze with a nod and smile.

"Thanks," they murmured, glancing around the room as if the two were being watched.

It irked Patches that the cat had- for some reason, decided to sit next to him in the back row closest to the window. The evening sun lazily beating down on him made him feel nice in a way that it hadn't before, like his new fur was just better suited for it somehow. In truth, it was one of the only nice things about his body, and still totally overshadowed by the rot that consumed his core whenever he thought about his predicament too much.