The young vampire and his friend walked towards the locker rooms to change for gym class. The vampire wasn’t a fan of this class; he wasn’t a sporty person. Obviously. You could argue he was fast, but that was it.

In the hallway to the boys’ locker room, they passed a girl heading for the girls’ room. She greeted the vampire’s friend with a smile. His friend greeted her back, a bit confused.

She stopped walking and asked, “Are you going to the winter ball next week?”

“Uh, I wasn’t planning to,” his friend answered.

The girl frowned. “Why not?”

The vampire got grumpy. He didn’t like this. They were busy; they had a class to go to. He hooked a finger around one of the belt loops of his friend’s jeans and lightly tugged at it.

“It’s not my thing.” His friend turned to continue walking. “But we have to go.”

“Okay, bye,” the girl said, a little sad.

“What was that?” his friend asked him. The vampire shrugged.

They entered the locker room with all the other boys from their class. They claimed their spot in the corner and began changing.

The vampire glanced at his friend while he was changing his shirt and thought about how he’d grown over the past two years. He had grown even taller, his head nearly reaching the tops of doorframes.

The vampire had grown too, their height difference hadn’t changed much.

He was hairier, his beard was really starting to grow, his arm and leg hair was more obvious. He’d gotten more muscular too, even though he didn’t go to the gym or anything. Must be his werewolf genes. Unfair, he didn’t have to work for his muscles. The vampire had never seen him shifted, he realised.

He continued changing into his gym clothes himself. He took the piercing in his left earlobe out; they weren’t allowed in gym class. He’d recently gotten it as a bit of rebellion.

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Today, the teacher decided they’d play dodgeball. Great.

They were divided into two teams, the vampire was on the opposite team from his friend. If you got hit, you had to go to the area behind the other team, so you could attack them from there if you got your hands on a ball.

The game began. The vampire stood in the back of their field, planning to only dodge.

His werewolf friend was targeted immediately, as always with these games. He was big and intimidating. They wanted him out of the game right away. The vampire thought it was dumb, because now the big, intimidating presence was behind them. Not that his friend would throw the balls hard, or even try his best. He was too gentle for that.

As the game went on, the vampire stuck to his plan; only dodge. Until there was only one other person left in the field with him. That person did throw the balls, they were getting frustrated with the vampire that he wouldn’t.

He had balls thrown at him from all directions, his heartbeat sped up. He frantically ran and duck around, doing his best to stay out of the balls’ paths.

The other person had been hit, he was the only one left. His teammates yelled at him to throw a ball. He couldn’t control his breathing, tears came to his eyes.

He ran off the field, into the locker room.

The werewolf saw his small vampire friend begin to panic on the field in front of him. He wanted to help, to calm him down; it was only a game. But he didn’t want to attract unwanted attention, he knew the vampire would hate that just as much.

His friend ran off, the werewolf wanted to go after him.

“Don’t,” the teacher sternly told him. “Don’t enable his tantrum throwing.”

The werewolf clenched his fists and jaw. Tantrum throwing? Some teacher she was.

He left the field anyway.

“Hey!” the teacher called.

“Try and stop me!” he snapped, then went to the locker room.

He found the vampire on the bench in the corner, his knees pulled against his chest, crying and hyperventilating. He sat next to him, one leg folded under him, facing his friend. The vampire was rubbing the skin between his thumb and index finger.

“Hey,” he whispered. He held his hand.

The vampire glanced at him.

“It’s okay. We’re alone. No one will hurt you, I’ll make sure of it.”

The vampire sniffed his tears up. He let his legs down and laid his head against the werewolf’s chest. The werewolf wrapped both his arms around him and comfortingly rubbed his waist.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

The vampire shook his head.

They sat there for a while, no one came to check on them. The werewolf was glad, he knew his friend wouldn’t want anyone to intervene.

The vampire took a deep breath and whispered, “What must they all be thinking of me?”

“It doesn’t matter. They don’t know what’s going on with you, who are they to judge?”

The vampire shrugged.

“How about we leave and head into the city for the rest of the day?” the werewolf suggested. “Get some ice cream or something. I don’t care to skip a couple classes.”

The vampire looked up at him with a teary smile. “Okay.”