Author's Note: This story uses the human appearances of used characters, the animal personification is purely used to describe behavior.
Sugar-High
Chapter I – Oblivious Love
Another average day in a not so average town. The lovable green, hyper-active squirrel of the town sat with his legs crisscrossed as his behind nuzzled into the grassy plain under the tree he used for cover from the heating UV waves of the sun. He sighed happily as he put his arms behind his head, his neon pink stripped shirt lifted up a bit, shifting the yellow candy chain he wore diagonally across his chest, revealing a nice smooth stomach with a belly button decorating the center of his abdomen. He also wore a neon green hoodie that had neon pink cuffs at the end of the sleeves, on this jacket were two bow tie pins on the right side with a winking pin and a candy cane hanging out of the front right hand side pocket and two safety pins, one of red and the other of white, hanging off the bottom left hand article of his jacket.. Just below his belly button was the hem of black shorts with a brown belt running all around the fabric, holding the hem snug to his skin. The baggy black and neon pink edged shorts draped down to his knees, with pockets filled with so much candy that it had begun to stick out from the openings that led into the void of his pockets, and where neon green and green-yellow stripped socks began to run down the length of his legs to the brown boots he wore. His laces were undone, but as if he cared about that at all, he liked them that way. His hair was also a mess, pure green locks draped down his head gracefully, the back of his hair reaching down to his collar bone where a red-orange candy chain dangled. A single area of his bangs were coloured a yellow-green in the middle, on this area of hair he wore two horizontal candy hair pins with a large, bitten into, round red lollipop that was stuck just above the two hair pins. On his left ear resided three piercings, two dot earrings and a small ring earring on the lobe, above that ear were two orange and yellow polka dotted drops of candy that hid in his hair.
His eyes were closed as he inhaled the sweet scent of Autumn air, his nostrils expanding to take in the sweet air. His lips were curled up in a small smile as he enjoyed his relaxation against his favorite tree, this was perfect. The male's left arm shifted from behind his head to inside his pocket, grabbing a handful of whatever candy fell victim to his iron grip. Lifting his handful of candy out from his pocket, his eyes opened to sample what delicacies he would enjoy. One eye looked completely normal, green and innocent looking, the other was googly, lazy and a brighter green then the other. His googly, lazy eye looked almost smaller compared to the pupil and iris to his normal looking eye.
"Hmmm..." he hummed gently as he examined the bunch he had in his warm hand almost confusing the checkered red and white ring he wore on his right hand with the bunch of candy he held.
Pieces of colourful candy poured onto the groin area of the male's lap as he sat up a bit and rubbed his hands together with a small giggle and the quick smacking of his lips, which he was very known for. Hands quickly began to unwrap various pieces of candy, dark purple and black stripped coloured nails ripping into wrappers and tearing them apart to retrieve the sweet jewels they held within their colourful packaging. His mouth was open and in went ever little piece, jaws closed, teeth breaking into the hard surfaces of the candies, shattering them into delicate pieces as their sweet taste invaded and conquered the hyper-active squirrel's tongue and mouth, almost devouring his sky blue and white candy bracelet that dangled off his right hand wrist. Rapid lip smacking, tongue licking around his sticky fingers, laughter ensued and eventually, the famous sugar-high that sent the male jumping up and laughing hard as he held his stomach. For several minutes he laughed and ran about, climbing up his tree then jumping down and rolling around the grass.
As soon as he began calming down from his sugar-high, his eyes glanced over toward the town that was in the distance as he laid on his stomach. He wondered if any of his buddies were busy at the moment, maybe he could take them to get some sweets. He hopped up and blinked a bit before he began to run off toward the town giggling to himself as he had his arms spread out like a airplane.
In the small cafe diner the town had, just about everyone was there enjoying their breakfasts of all different kinds. Disco Bear was of course trying to make a move on the two lovely ladies of Petunia and Giggles whom both rejected him for how incredibly lame he was. Pop and Cub were sitting together, eating and playing little games with their food like a happy pair. Lumpy was attempting to buy something to eat and tried to explain to Petunia that he had no money on him, which of course caused him to get denied service before Flippy came over and offered to pay for his food. Russell was enjoying a hardy seaman's breakfast of fish and other assorted sea foods. Mime was seemingly eating whatever the hell he had conjured up on the empty table in front of him. Mole kept tripping and falling all over the place, making a very frustrated Sniffles gather his things and head out the door, inevitably making him smash into a running Nutty who happened to come running by.
Grunting, the two men fell to the floor with thuds, each of them rubbing their tender bottoms from the impact of the concrete floor beneath them. The blue haired male shook his head and moved his short wavy hair out from in front of his eyes as he adjusted his glasses before he looked over at the green haired male.
"Ahh..Nutty..I'm sorry, I didn't see you running over here, how clumsy of me." he apologized, standing up and dusting off himself off, fixing his red tie that was mostly covered by the odd blue coloured sweater vest he wore over his white polo which happened to be accompanied by a pair of gray shorts, black knee high socks and brown dress type shoes. He extended a hand, bright blue eyes staring at the other male whom was still on the ground, looking up at him. The blue haired male smiled gently before Nutty extended his own hand and grasped his with that of his own. Laughing a little, Sniffles pulled up the brightly dressed man.
"Ehehe~ Sniffles, you should really watch around you, y'know you're almost as blind as Mole!" he laughed a little.
"W-What? B-Blind like Mole? Why that's absolutely preposterous!" Sniffles argued.
Nutty stood there with a clueless look upon his face, his mouth slightly opened as he stared at him like a complete moron, "You don't even know what that means...do you?" Sniffles spoke with a slight sigh after his sentence.
Nutty nodded his head to answer Sniffles question which only made the blue haired male shake his head and kneel down to the ground to pick up the books he had with him before they were dropped once running into Nutty the way he had.
"So..Nutty, what brings you to town? As if I don't know all ready.." he muttered.
"Hmmm~ I was wondering if anyone wanted to go get some sweets with me down by the ice cream parlor that Lifty an Shifty got going by the antiques shop! Say..-"
"Ah! Don't even think about asking me Nutty, I have a million things to attend to back home and I got a lot of experiments to run in a very small time frame." Sniffles interrupted.
The other male looked down a bit and pouted, "Oh... All right.. Well I guess we'll hang out another time?"
"Yeah.. I guess so." he shrugged before he walked past Nutty, heading off toward his home before stopping dead in his tracks.
'Dammit Sniffles, don't give into your tender heart, you have a lot of important work to do, you can't afford to mess around. Don't do it! Don't do it!' he repeated to himself in his mind until he turned around to see Nutty hadn't moved an inch, like he knew that he would come back to him and take up the offer.
Sighing, he walked back over to Nutty and stood next to him, putting a single hand on his shoulder, "Hey..Let's go down to the parlor and get one ice cream.. I can sacrifice some time and hang for a little while." he said with a s slight smile.
His head rose up as his eyes seemed to shine with brilliance and happiness as he looked up at the other with a big smile on his face before he would grab a hold of him, wrapping his arms around the properly dressed man tightly and squeezing somewhat, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" he exclaimed happily.
Grunting and squirming around in the squirrel's grasp, Sniffles chuckled nervously and attempted to push him off, wheezing slightly from the cut of air circulation in his lungs. Nutty got the hint and let go almost immediately before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a little dum dum lollipop, unwrapping it and sticking it into his mouth as he smiled at the other and started leading the way toward the ice cream parlor he had talked about and wanted to go to so badly. Reluctantly, Sniffles followed willingly against his better judgment. As if anyone in their right mind would willingly hang out with this sugar crazy bastard of a being. The two walked one behind the other for a while until they were side by side and began mindless conversation about their days so far, even though they had just started them. They passed by many shops of all kinds, hair salons, grocery stores, a gas station, some fast food joints, and occasionally they passed by a small club or two. Sooner or later, they ended up in the front door of the ice cream parlor Nutty was so dying to get into. Just looking into the window of the shop made his mouth water with excitement, he loved ice cream almost as much as he loved candy itself. The interior of the shop looked like your average ice cream parlor, small with a few tables of solid colours of red, white and some other kind of tacky colours with large storage freezers with all kinds of ice cream running along the front counter of the register. Sniffles looked through the window with the crazed sugar lover and blinked, amazed to see how many different kinds of ice cream they had at their disposal. Glancing over to his side for a moment, there was a change; Nutty wasn't next to the book holding male's side. Blinking he turned back to the window, seeing the hyper-active male was already inside, eager to try some of the delicious nectar that would be his next meal.
Shaking his head with a slight laugh, he stepped to the front door, pushing it open making a small bell ring to signal another customer had entered the shop. Nutty and Sniffles were the only ones there besides the shop owners of the kleptomaniac raccoon twins, Shifty and Lifty, whom stood behind the counter wearing black suits and aprons over them, with their typical smiles on their faces as they welcomed the two in. Typical Nutty was already pointing out all the different kinds of ice cream flavors he wanted to have in his ice cream cone. Lifty was in charge of the scooping, taking out a ice cream scooper he tried to keep up with the rapidly deciding squirrel, attempting to scoop out all the flavors he wanted and playing them in the largest cone size so it would actually fit. Sniffles and Shifty could only laugh as they watched with amusement before Nutty's order was finished and handed to him. Sniffles smiled and pointed toward the Rocky Road ice cream and Lifty was thankful that it would be a normal cone and not Nutty's monstrosity. Sniffle's gladly paid for the two orders making the twins grin and laugh from the money they got.
Nutty had already ran off and sat down in one of the booth seats against the window, happily licking his tall tower of 23 different ice cream flavors. Smiling lightly, his companion joined him, setting his books down on the table between them as he sat across from him, gently licking the soft creamy surface of his Rocky Road ice cream.
"Oooo~ Heheheh..Hey Sniffles." Nutty giggled, chomping into his ice cream.
"Hm?" he hummed in reply, his tongue sticking out and touching the ice cream.
"Thanks for doing this. You didn't have to, but it makes me happy to know that not everyone finds me completely annoying." Nutty responded.
Sniffles smiled softly, taking another lick of his ice cream. Inside Sniffles felt bad for the other male. Everyone around town did find him odd, annoying, and an outcast. Everyone in the tow would pretend to like him, pretend to act like a friend to him. Everyone was guilty of this crime, including Sniffles himself. He felt regret for ever pretending and faking his friendship with Nutty. He didn't dwell on the thought for long so he could keep his smile up and make sure Nutty didn't see any sign of sadness because he would ask what was wrong. And if he was to find out the truth, who knows what would happen?
The two males had idle chit chat about they're favorite kinds of ice creams and as to why they loved them so much. Nutty finished before Sniffles ever did, which to say the very least was surprising. But then again, it was Nutty after all, the devourer of sweets galore. As soon as Sniffles finished his cone, he wiped his mouth with a small napkin while Nutty was busy licking his fingers and lips to get every single sweet taste of any remnant of the sticky substance he enjoyed. Sniffles chuckled lightly before he shifted out of his seat, standing up and collecting his things.
"Well, Nutty, I wish I could stay longer but I really have to get going." he said, breaking the silence.
Nutty frowned and looked up at him sadly, "Aww! All ready?" he whined.
Sniffles only nodded his head in reply and head toward the shop door before stopping with his hand on the door itself, ready to push, "Sorry Nutty." he muttered before he pushed the door open and walked out, heading down the road to where his home would be.
Frowning and pouting, his resting his elbows on the table with his chin resting on his palms. Shifty and Lifty both looked at each other and began to snicker slightly with devious grins on their faces. The two twins slicked out from behind the counter and headed toward pouty male. The two of them stood next to where he was sitting, one arm other their shoulders and a hand on the opposite hip.
"So, Nutty. Ya feeling kinda lonely?" Shifty asked, grinning.
They only got a slight nod from the disappointed green-haired male.
"You know he's just fooling ya, right?" Lifty said.
This made Nutty turn his head with a questionable look on his face, "Fooling me? What do you mean, fooling me?"
"He's just acting nice so you don't feel bad, he's not really your friend." Shifty explained.
"Yeah, he's not! But you know what'll make your sorrows go away? Another helping of ice cream. You don't have to pay for now, you can just repay us tomorrow when you get the money. Whaddaya say?" Lifty proposed.
Nutty was shocked from the news, could it really be true that Sniffles was just deceiving him? It was true to a certain degree, the time the two spent together today was completely genuine, but how could Nutty know this after the news was just broken to him. Shifty sat down across from him, grinning a little as Lifty went back behind the counter to prepare Nutty another delicious serving.
"Ah, don't look so down buddy. If Sniffles wants to lie and pretend to be your friend, we can be your real friends." he grinned, trying to gain the distressed male's trust. It seemed Shifty and Lifty had a devious money scheme planned out for him.
"Y-You really mean it? You'll be my friends?" he asked, a pathetic look on his face, a look of depression and sadness.
"Sure! If no one else will be your friends, then we'll be your friends buddy." Lifty called over to him, heading toward him with another giant cone of delectable ice cream.
Extending the ice cream forth toward the rather depressed male. A slight smile formed on his frowny lips as he looked over at Lifty and took the ice cream from his hand, licking against the smooth texture of the delicious frozen treat. Shifty adjusted his hat, his dark green locks draping over one of his eyes while Lifty looked at him and winked a bit as a sort of non-verbal communication between the two. Shifty nodded his head and looked out the window to see that Sniffles was standing on the opposite side of the road from across the shop.
"Ahh.. so Nutty..! Why don't you come on over here and away from the window? You don't want that ice cream to melt now, do ya?" Shifty said, scooting out of his seat and standing to avert Nutty's gaze from looking beyond the window. It worked, the sugar loving male's eyes followed their movements as they smiled at him while he licked at his ice cream. Though their distraction plan was short lived since Sniffle's had entered the shop once more, making the shop bell ring above the door which inevitably made Nutty look over and blinked his eyes.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the 'friend.'" Lifty said putting up air quotes as he said friend.
"Ohh, it's the 'friend.' Here to lie to your 'buddy' some more?" Shifty said chuckling a little.
"W-What are you two talking about? I haven't lied to Nutty about anything! If anything, you two have been lying to him about whatever it is you probably tossed into his mind." Sniffles said defensively, crossing his arms across his chest.
"Tch, us lie? How could you accuse us of lying? We're very honest people!" Shifty acted out against him.
"We would never lie to Nutty! He's our legit friend whom we cherish and don't pretend to be nice to." Lifty added on with his brother's argument.
"Just what on earth are you talking about?" Sniffles exclaimed, demanding to know.
Nutty squeaked a little and added his say in, "They told me that you were just pretending to be my friend so I wouldn't be sad or feel bad.." he pouted.
"W-What? That's just utter nonsense! I would never do that to you. You're my friend, Nutty." Sniffles replied to Nutty.
Hearing that made the pure green-haired male smile a little. The twins looked at each other with annoyed faces before they returned their attention back toward the two other males. Overly happy, Nutty accidentally dropped his ice cream onto the parlor floor as he got up from his seat finally and proceeded to tightly hug and squeeze the blue-haired male. Shifty and Lifty hopped out of the way as the ice cream fell to the floor, wearing annoyed and pissed expressions upon their faces as they knew their plan to scam Nutty out of money was inevitably foiled by this event. Lifty was more so pissed then Shifty since he would have to clean up the damn mess on the floor. Sniffles grunted but allowed the other to hug and squeeze all he want, a single hand reaching up and patting him on the top of his head.
"C'mon Sniffles! I know a great place we can hang out in!" Nutty exclaimed.
"Yeah, let's go. Better off together then with these two rats." Sniffles said smiling with insulting intent behind his words.
The twins growled and turned around, walking back toward the counter, bickering at each other about who's fault it was that their plan failed. Nutty was overwhelmed with joy and had such a short attention span that he hadn't even noticed Lifty and Shifty were still about. To him all that was there was him and his best friend Sniffles. The two men left the klepto twins in their shop, both of them now standing on the sidewalk in front of the parlor itself after sounding the shop bell once they opened the door to leave. Sniffle's hand dug themselves into the pockets of his shorts after he adjusted his glasses, smiling at Nutty who had latched himself onto his right arm, not wanting to let it go.
The two men strolled down the sidewalk, heading toward the local community park. Both of them were quiet, enjoying each others company. Sniffles could get used to this, he was starting to see a whole new side of Nutty that no one has gotten a chance to see since they all just ignored him and shrugged him off as a public annoyance. Nutty and Sniffles made it to the public park and took a seat on one of the many benches that dotted around the park. Pop and Cub were of course there like usual, playing games and bonding like a real father and son would. Cuddles was sitting in one of the swings humming to himself and looking up at the clouds, swaying a bit. Nutty and Sniffles laughed and joked a bit, making fun of Flippy and Lumpy arguing with each other over god knows what.
"You know... I didn't think hanging out with a friend could be so enjoyable in such a simple place." Sniffles said, looking at Nutty.
"Huh? You really think this is enjoyable?" Nutty asked curiously.
"Mm-hmm, I can't really explain it, but it's nice to spend some time with someone rather then being alone." he replied, "Hey, if you'd like, we could hang out a little more tomorrow if you have nothing else to do." he added.
"B-But, what about all that smart stuff you had to do? Won't you be working on all that all day?" he blinked, tilting his head some.
"Ah, it can wait a day I think." Sniffles answered with a small chuckle.
Nutty smiled wide, his eyes shimmering with happiness.
Finally he had found a real, true friend to call his own. Finally he had found someone that he could spend time with, someone that he could talk to, someone he could connect to. This, marked the happiest day of his life.