Chapter Text
All he wants is time.
With the amount of homework piling on his desk at home, not to mention how many are long overdue and some half-ripped, Gregg's certain his dad will pull him out of public school and right back to a clean, social-free homeschooling environment.
Oh how wrong his 2AM brain was!
Instead of practically treating his in-home schooldays as a vacation, knowing his dad’s fussy over his efforts instead of any real work, he's still making him go to school! And on a Friday, his most favorite of days!
“Greggory, you need to go to school,” his dad warns, shoving him right out the front door and throwing him a heavy grey backpack.
“But why, Dad?” Gregg whines with his ears flat against his head, dragging out the 'y' while pouting. Tugging the straps over his shoulders, he wonders if his dad stuffed it with bricks. Or was it always this heavy and his muscles just chose to give up on him?
When the only answer he gets in return is his dad slamming the door and locking it, he wonders why he even thought the guy will reconsider.
Walking to school's next on his mind, right after deciding how much work he’d need to make excuses about.
Or it would’ve been the plan had the bus not come up to a nice, slow-rolling stop in front of him. The penguin at the wheel still looks as old as he remembers!
With the doors opening, Gregg pretends to gag from imaginary dust bits coming off them. For some reason the driver gives him a stink eye for it, to which he sticks his tongue out at them.
“Get in,” is all he needs to hear before climbing in.
Gregg’s eyes scan through each seat he passes while walking down the aisle, mentally crossing his fingers in hopes a free seat by the window will pop up.
“Foxie!”
Well fuck those dreams.
“Ahaha-” Gregg sucks in a breath at the sudden pull into a seat, sitting up as soon as his back hits whatever the bag has hidden away in it. He’d check, but that's too much work for one bus ride! “Heey, uh…”
The crocodile staring at him with a stupid grin is none other than-
“Steve, for fuck’s sake, that was supposed to be our seat!”
Some goat raises a fist at Gregg’s friend, the one and only Steve Scriggins, before pulling along a pretty scared-looking teen to a seat right across from them.
Gregg pushes his back against the seat. He knows better than to get in the middle of pretty much anything involving Steve, especially if yelling’s involved.
“When you two chicks drop out of wrestling and do something you can ACTUALLY do, you can have your seat back!” Steve yells, leaning right in front of Gregg’s face.
Glancing at the ones in question, the goat looks pissed before turning away from them, and their friend sounds worried.
“Jackie, it’s-” is about as much he hears coming out of the scaredy-scale’s mouth, everything else's way too hush-hush for the fox’s ears to pick up on.
They look like Steve, and unless Gregg sucks bad at species-guessing, then that means they have to be another crocodile! He never thought only one kind of person of one kind of species can exist. Hell, his fox-only family is a prime example!
But it gives him a weird impulse. One of those energy-bursting impulses that makes him wanna flap his hands, wag his tail, and-
-his face smacks the aisle floor hard.
────────────────────────
Everything looks so.. bright?
Is this one of those afterlife things his dad said was impossible for him to reach?
Maybe his dad should’ve warned him about being gently slapped on the nose in the afterlife.
“Um.”
The room looks all blurry and bright when Gregg opens his eyes. The walls are white and boring, even the floor, and-
Wow!
What else can top a bland room than a neat handful of encouraging ‘hang in there’ posters with a possum dangling off a tree branch!
“You look angry.”
Fuck, did he glare at one of the possum-dangling posters a little too obviously?
Shaking his head, only to instantly regret the pang hitting him, Gregg tries holding his paws out above his lap and focuses on them. He doesn't feel like he's hyperventilating, and he definitely doesn't feel wetness in the eyes. So, what happened?
“Heaven..?” he whispers. What other logical answer is there?
“Music room.”
“Music..?” Fuck Gregg, at least say more than one word!
Once his paws don't look blurry as all hell, Gregg lifts his gaze to meet a bear looking his way. A bear with funny-looking glasses.
Keep the kinda-insult to yourself, Gregg.
“You, um, passed out on the bus,” they start to explain, and he's all ears. “A crocodile dragged you out, and.. left you on the ground.”
Instead of just Steve coming to mind, a brief flicker of the other crocodile on the bus ride crosses his mind.
“Were they with a goat?” Gregg asks. “Or do you know their name or something?”
“Goat?” they parrot. “Um. No goat.”
So Steve then. Unless some random third crocodile wanted to play hero for a good five seconds by dragging a fox stranger off the bus.
“Wait wait wait wait.” Gregg lets his brain sit with the new information for a good ten seconds before thinking of questions.
“Y-”
“How’d I get here if I was in the bus all passed out?”
“...”
“...”
“I carried you.”
“Ah.”
Glancing at the bear’s paws, they're fiddling with a string around their thumb. Have they always been doing that and he just noticed?
“So-”
Gregg doesn't let them finish that attempt of a sentence, waving his paws to stop them. “Where’s my backpack??”
“...”
“...”
“Crocodile took it.”
“Oh.”
C’mon, don’t sink back into one-word replies!
After clearing his throat, and taking a few seconds to avoid choking on his own saliva from doing that, Gregg stands and eyes the door to head out. “I’ll be off then! Classes and all that junk!”
Note to self, get vengeance against Steve later.
Just as he goes to grab the handle, it wiggles and Gregg jumps back. He does NOT need to get knocked out twice in one day!
But it's locked.
And whoever’s knocking sounds kinda pissed about that.
“Is someone in there?!” they yell, banging a fist on the door. “I have a job to do, you know!”
The bear sitting on the floor where Gregg woke up from doesn't make any moves to open the door. They just stare at him.
So, he doesn't move either. And he stares back.
Seems like two brains come to life when they hear a jingling of keys and both of them rush to press against the door with every fiber in their being!
Gregg feels instant regret - is it becoming a pattern? - when he and the other teen fall face-first to the floor when a scary-looking bird man with a mop and keys swings the door open.
Ohh fuck. I recognize that mop anywhere!
“Janitor!” Gregg shouts, or maybe screams, as he hops up to his feet and wraps his arms around the poor sucker.
Janitor bops the top of his head with the wooden end of the mop. When that doesn't work, he uses that end to shove - with some struggle - the energetic fox away from him.
Gregg's content with getting his probably-one-time-for-the-day Janitor Hug, so he lets himself be pushed away, feeling smug he has the privilege to do something like that. He has to be the coolest guy there for being literal best friends with the school’s only janitor!
Maybe Steve will think twice next time before ditching his friend on the sidewalk! In his face!
“Delaney, is this kid causing trouble for you?” Janitor turns to the bear in question, who's holding glasses without the lenses. Where’d those go?
“No,” they answer, shaking their head and standing up slowly. He doesn't know why, but seeing them upset makes Gregg feel some kind of guilt. Or it's just hunger.
No, no, it's definitely guilt. Hunger makes him feel kinda good, not super bad.
“Good then,” Janitor tips his hat and leans the mop against the wall by the door when he enters the so-called ‘music room’. Turning to the pair, he raises his.. feathers? Wing? Birds are complicated! And this grumpy bird looks right at Gregg. “Don’t cause trouble, kid.”
Then he shuts the door and locks it up. No more music room for either of them.
“So,” Gregg begins, being rudely interrupted by a bell ringing through the halls to let everyone know the halls are ready to be crowded and absolute danger-everywhere zones. “Uhh! What class d’ya have, Delaney?”
“Oh!” They shrug off their bag from their shoulders, swiping out a book-looking file thing and bringing out a paper. Gregg sees the words ‘classes’ and assumes it’s the same paper the principal gives all first-day students each year.
The same paper Gregg totally never discards every single time he gets one.
And he totally isn't brushed up against the other to look at their schedule.
“Soooooooooooo?”
“So.” They take a full minute studying the schedule like some exam they got a pop quiz on, tucking the paper back into the full folder-thing and sealing it away into their backpack. “I have to meet with the Cross Country team.”
“Cross Country team?” Gregg blinks. “What’s that mean?”
That weird hunger-guilt combined feeling feels a little better when he catches a bright glint in the bear’s eyes. He digs people with passion, even if he doesn't get it himself.
Gregg’s ears fall back when he feels someone drag him away, leaving him to wave at his new friend as crowds of students finally fill the halls with all kinds of things and words and laughs.
He didn’t even get to hear about Cross Country!
“You look bitchy,” Mae tells him as soon as she drags him into their Safe Room. It's not really theirs theirs, but needless to say, it became theirs and they have a lot of ways to keep others from using it.
Plus, Janitor has his own closet, so he doesn't need theirs. And he's pretty onboard with Gregg and Mae turning this one into their Safe Room, even if it’s got some more room than the one Janitor said is fine with him.
“You smell like a rat,” Gregg retorts, once his head's working again. He leans into his beanbag chair while Mae settles in hers; orange and black respectively.
“I wish you died in that crowd of kids.”
Gregg scrunches his nose at that. “I wish those rats you’re feeding give you enough rat bites to make your fur fall out.”
Mae crosses her arms. “I hope your legs get bent backwards-”
“Yeah? Well-”
“Not done!” She makes a tsk noise at him. “-and got all your bones crushed by everyone’s gross feet walking all over you.”
“Ew.” Gregg gags at that. Barely. “I hope your teeth fall out next time you eat a really good pizza and all pizza slices you see have bugs crawling all over them!”
Mae kicks his knee with her foot, shaking her head at even the thought of something like that. Gregg felt grossed out by it too as soon as those words left his mouth, but he has no regrets! No one can best Gregg at this game! Not even his best friend!
“Mean!” he whines. Gregg brings his knees to his chest and holds them there, pouting and giving the saddest puppy dog eyes he can.
She sticks her tongue out. “Deserved!”
The sounds of disgusting teenage youth - maybe Gregg's being a hypocrite, sue him! - trampling the halls came to a beautiful halt. Not a single sound of footsteps in some kind of radius.
Pressing his ear right up against the door is the worst thing he could’ve done while having Mae in the closet with him.
Because seconds after he does, his ever-so polite best friend delightedly opens the door to let him fall flat to the ground. At least he lands on his side and only messes up his shoulder somewhat! Not a faceplant, but a sideplant! A shoulderplant even!
“Holy shit.”
Gregg never thought life will throw him into one of those cliché moments he’s seen in movies.
The one type of scene where a clumsy protagonist falls in front of their crush, only to swoon when their crush catches them on instinct.
What he really never expected is to fall on top of that crocodile he remembers from the bus. And by the glaring from the goat, whose sleeves are rolled up, Gregg guesses his survival rate just dropped to about 0%.