This is strictly a one chapter story, i hope you enjoy
Tears... The small, clear stream ran down Calvin's face. He could hear his mom and dad in the other room... With his psychiatrist. He, listening to the bickering, was sitting on his bed, the soft quilt on top felt welcoming, but only in an ironic way. He strained to hear once again.
"It was cute when he was a kid, now, he's sixteen and still talking to that stuffed tiger. He has no real friends!" He heard his dad say. His dad meant well, he would give fatherly advice and didn't expect any more than that he at least pondered over them. He had unconditional love for Calvin, he just never truly knew how to express it in a way that would show it, like right now. He knew his dad was looking out for him, but his words stung like a wasp.
"Dear, don't be so mean about it! He's just... Confined is all, not many people can handle Calvin's eccentric personality." His mom said. She was a little better at nurturing than his dad, probably because that was the natural order of any normal household. The father was the dictator of the child, he taught him everything. The mother was the nurturer, someone to fall back on when dad went too far.
"He told me he had had a friend as a child, a miss Susie Derkins?" His psychiatrist said. His psychiatrist, like his father, meant well. He tried to help Calvin, he honestly did, but Calvin had tons of problems, he was easily distracted, he was never interested, it was things like this that kept them from making any progress in their time together. He thought now about what he said, 'Susie Derkins'. The only person who ever came close to being his friend was the one person he tormented the most, so much so that she and her family had moved away, leaving him with a feeling of emptiness.
"I never really thought Calvin thought of Susie as afriend." His mom's words were the last he heard, he had more things to focus on, namely himself. He looked down at himself, his red shirt was wet with tear drops, his long yellow hair had somehow found itself intertwined with his fingers. He laughed hollowly, he thought of all the times people asked how his hair stood up like it did, one person going as far as to suggest constant static electricity. That person was his best friend in the world, the one person who truly understood him, who could handle his 'eccentric personality': Hobbes the tiger.
He felt weight to the left of him. He looked up to see the concerned looking feline, his arm was resting on his shoulder.
"Hey buddy..." Hobbes paused, he only just noticed the stature of his friend, the tears. "What's wrong?"
The question rang like his ears in a snowball fight, he passed the question through his head, what was wrong with him?
"... Everything..." The one word seemed to cover it all, and it seemed to satisfy the tiger.
"It's odd, the feeling of not being proud of oneself. Us tigers are the definition of self worth. We wouldn't know much about it."
"Not us people Hobbes, we don't focus much on the positive, we focus on what we can be and what we aren't. I wish I was more like a tiger, I wouldn't care about what they were talking about, I'd focus on what I am to me." The words seemed to pour out of the troubled teen, his heart felt heavier as he realized the helplessness he felt. "I wish there was a way that all the stresses of the world could be taken off of me and thrown into the incinerator."
Hobbes' hand had moved down to Calvin's back and had started it's own rhythm of sympathy pats. The cat felt sympathetic, he began to think of what he could do to help, anything could help in this scenario. Suddenly, Calvin laid back on his bed, arms at his side. Hobbes took a glance at the ceiling, why the boy decided that was the most interesting thing was beyond him, but he too laid back.
Silence enveloped the room, the sounds outside were being ignored.
"C'mon Calvin, let's do something. Let's fight the monsters under your bed! I think I hear them, and I think they had children!" Hobbes said, breaking the fragile silence.
"I stopped believing in the monsters years ago." Said the boy in response, disregarding the attempt. "Why is life so hard? Why can't I choose to just not do it, like I do with my chores? Why can't I just blow it off and build snowmen forever?" The lament of the child sparked an idea in the tiger. He leaned over to the boy.
"I've figured out the solution to all your problems." He raised his paw, his claws were out.
"What do you mean?" The boy asked. Hobbes placed his claws on Calvin's arm and ran them from his wrist up. "Hobbes... What.. What are you doing?" He asked weakly.
"I'm giving you some stripes, I'm making you into a tiger. Soon, all your worries will be gone." The feline said, his claws were digging in deep now, blood started flowing down the pale skin of the sixteen year old. Calvin looked at his arm, his vision was staring to dull, the pain of his claw marks faded with it. "That should do it buddy. Welcome to the good life." He heard faintly.
He returned his attention back to the ceiling. Leave it to his best bud, the one who knows nothing about people, to help him in the best of ways, finally making him what he's always wanted to be, what he's always tried to be. He closed his eyes, the transformation was coming, he felt it. A faint smile worked his way onto his lips, ahead of him was a life that was pain free, a life that was full of purpose, a life where he would spill no more tears. His stripes would be permanent, there was no going back now. Everything went black. The last proof of his former humanity was the happy tear that ran across his soon to be fuzzy cheek.
And that's it.