# Additive Identity
Nate sighed as he looked up at the clock. It was still five minutes until closing and the Eevee hadn’t seen even a potential customer in over an hour. He idly wiped a damp rag over the countertop and let his gaze drift out one of the large front windows. The sky was a deep navy blue, the glare from the streetlight just outside hiding any stars. The bulb flickered and popped. Nate was about to look away when a movement caught his eye. Something had been there in the corner of the window, but by the time he’d looked back it was already gone. Was he imagining things? He blinked a couple of times, and his eyelids felt heavy, but he wasn’t that sleepy yet, was he? He groaned. He already had to walk home in the dark after getting stuck with the closing shift, and on top of that he’d been scheduled to open first thing in the morning the next day as well. The last thing he needed was a potential stalker worrying away at the back of his mind, imaginary or not. His eyes wandered back up to the clock again. A little less than two minutes had passed. The Eevee took a glance out at the deserted street and decided to pack it in early. There were certainly no customers around, and he was fairly certain his boss would never know. By the time he’d finished turning off the lights and flipping the sign, another minute had passed anyway. Close enough. Nate stepped out into the brisk night air and locked the door behind him. A chill breeze blew through his fur and he shivered slightly. He should have brought a jacket, but it had been warm during the day, and he’d forgotten to account for how that might change. Another inconvenience. A rustle behind him made him turn, ears perking up, but empty sidewalk greeted him as far as he could see. He bit his lip and tried to still his rapidly-beating heart. There was nothing there, and nowhere for anyone to be hiding. He double-checked all around himself anyway. The darkness was making him jumpy. Nate took a deep breath and started off back towards home. The only thing that would be waiting for him was an empty apartment and reheated noodles for a quick dinner before he’d need to try to sleep early on his old worn-out mattress. Maybe he’d get better rest if he got a new one, but that was just another thing on the long list of purchases he needed to make that he never quite felt comfortable justifying. His thoughts were interrupted as, just ahead of him, one of the streetlamps flickered and then went out with a gentle “pop.” Nate stopped and looked up at it. That hadn’t happened before. Then again, he told himself, this wasn’t exactly the best-maintained part of the city. He was being silly, he knew, but he felt like someone was watching him, though he could see nothing amiss in his surroundings. He even checked twice again. He lowered his head and continued on through the dark patch, walking a little more quickly. And then something happened. As the last of his body moved into the dark gap left by the broken lamp, he felt something soft beneath his paws, and looked down to find a deep blackness beneath him, darker than the sidewalk around it. A moving shadow. Nate yelped in alarm and tried to jump back, but his paws felt glued in place. Darkness began to ooze upwards over his body, rapidly covering him, his fur feeling strangely cool where the shadow flowed over it. His shout was abruptly cut off as his mouth was covered completely. There was a sharp pain in his neck, and then everything went black. --- Nate groaned as his consciousness began to return to him. His head throbbed dully, and his limbs failed to respond as he tried to move them, but this didn’t bother him as much as it should have. In fact, nothing seemed to bother him much, a strange euphoria having settled over him. Surely he would be fine. Even his head didn’t hurt that much, really, and as he thought about it more, the pain seemed to fade. He abruptly realized he was being held, and his neck was being tended to. He slowly lifted his eyelids, and it took a moment for his gaze to focus. There was a…fox, of some kind. Its tongue was slowly dragging across the fur on his neck, the same place he’d felt pain before. It was gone now, though. All his pains were gone, in fact. The creature was holding him softly. It probably didn’t know he was awake, and Nate kept still for the moment. It smelled nice. Like a bakery full of sweet desserts, or maybe just cupcakes. Nate wasn’t sure. Just the frosting, maybe. He was struggling to form complex thoughts. He twitched, and felt his limbs respond in kind, moving slightly. That was probably good, maybe they still worked after all. The fox noticed. “Awake, are we?” The voice sounded familiar somehow, but he was certain he’d never met a fox like this one before. It looked somewhat like a Pokémon, but not one he recognized. He realized he’d gotten lost in thought and hadn’t replied. “I-I…guess…” His words were slurred slightly, but as he continued to speak, they improved, his motor skills coming back to him. Slowly. He continued. “What…happened? Where am I? And who are you?” The fox let out a soft giggle, amused by his questions. “You don’t remember? You were heading home from work when you were ambushed by a vicious predator! Kidnapped and dragged back to its secret lair… I mean me, by the way. I’m the vicious predator. I kidnapped you. My name is Zero.” Nate blinked slowly. It was a lot to absorb, especially with the matter-of-fact way the statement had been delivered. He was pretty sure he should be a lot more concerned, but that odd euphoria was still with him, and he could only feel a mild anxious tingle at worst, no matter how hard he mentally pushed at his feelings. “Kidnapped me? But…why? Did you drug me? Is that why I feel so strange?” The fox patted his head soothingly and smiled. “I did, yes. So you wouldn’t panic. I haven’t done anything else to you, and it’s not permanent, I promise.” Nate wasn’t sure he could trust the promise of a fox he’d never met before, but Zero wasn’t finished yet. “As for why I kidnapped you…I’m going to answer that with a question. Are you…happy?” “Happy? I mean it’s a little hard to be sure how I feel with–” “No no, not right this moment. Before. In general. With your life.” “Of course I’m…” Nate trailed off before he could finish. He’d been about to insist that he was happy, but…was he really? He thought back to how he’d felt at work, running out early because a few more minutes had felt unbearable to him, with nothing to look forward to but an early start the next day. The fox carefully placed a paw under Nate’s chin and tilted his head upwards, looking directly into his eyes. Nate squirmed slightly as Zero’s gaze pierced through him. “If you can tell me, honestly, truly, that you are happy with your life, and that you want to go back to it…then you will wake up in your bed tomorrow morning, rested and refreshed, and all this will seem like the strangest dream.” Nate wasn’t sure he could imagine what being rested and refreshed actually felt like. The fox continued. “...but if not…well, I have something you can help me with. And maybe it will help you, too.” Nate wasn’t sure what that meant, but the fox’s eyes were serious. “So what is it, then? Are you happy? Do you want to go back?” Alarm bells were going off in Nate’s head, but he couldn’t really think about them. Even the thought of lying to this fox withered and died in his mind before it could take root. Those eyes were so…sincere. Was that compassion? He felt that the creature could sense the mental struggle going on inside him. “I…um…well…I just…I’m…n-no.” He swallowed nervously. “No, I’m not. I’m not happy at all…” Before he realized it, more and more words were tumbling out of his mouth. He almost tripped over them several times. “It’s just…e-every day I wake up, roll out of bed, and drag myself to a job where nobody cares, I get berated by customers all day, and my boss too if I make even the tiniest mistake. The worst part is…I know that even if I quit, if I got out, they’d just replace me in a day or two, I don’t *matter*. And in the meantime all that extra work would go on someone else who doesn’t deserve that and not the people who do. Plus, then what would I do, you know? I can already barely afford to pay rent on my tiny apartment, and I can’t even buy proper food, and…I just keep going and going because I don’t know what else to do. What else can I do?” There were tears in his eyes. He sniffled. “I don’t even think anyone would miss me if I disappeared…nobody is going to come looking for me.” He felt the fox holding him in close, and he buried his tear-streaked cheeks into the soft fur. It was warm. “Shhh…to be honest with you, I knew all of that already. It’s what made me choose you, after all. I know a lot about you.” Suddenly the fox’s lips were on his, and the Eevee found himself leaning into the kiss. It was gentle and loving, and he slowly reached around Zero in a nervous hug. The fox had no such hesitation, and pulled Nate in close. Nate could feel tingles running all through his body, and his eyelids began to droop. He felt warm and heavy, but the great surge of sadness in his heart was receding slowly. The fox pulled away, licking its lips. Nate’s head felt foggy, but it was so warm…his whole body felt tingly. It was all he could do to just concentrate on breathing slowly. “Just relax, sweetie…you don’t have to go back to that anymore. Just think about that…no more work, no more sadness. Come with me instead…” The words were so soothing, they ran over and through his mind like thick honeyed syrup. Could he really just…go? Leave it all behind? He shivered. The fox kissed his nose, and then it opened its maw wide in front of him. The inside was an inky black void, and Nate stared. It pulsed gently, invitingly, and Nate knew that was where he was going. Inside. He knew he should be scared, but somehow he only felt a nervous excitement. His head spun as the darkness grew closer and closer…though the fox wasn’t moving, Nate himself slowly leaning in without realizing. Soon the Eevee’s muzzle rested on that dark tongue, which brushed over and around his face before pressing back under his chin, guiding him gently onwards. This close, the back of that throat seemed cavernous, rippling with an eager swallow. He could feel warm breath exhaling past him, smelling sweet…rich, like sugar, or maybe vanilla cream. The Eevee felt a nervous twinge inside him, but the fox’s paws were on him, stroking soothingly. Nate remained like that for a long time, with the fox waiting patiently, letting him adjust to the idea. Waiting for him to give himself willingly. And he did. With a deep breath, the Eevee closed his eyes and pushed his muzzle in deep, back into that throat. *Glllrrk.* The fox didn’t gag. Instead, with a very practiced motion, it swallowed around the Eevee’s muzzle, pulling at it lightly. It was damp inside, and drool soaked into Nate’s fur, but it was warm…very warm, and soft. Though his view had been framed by powerful jaws, those teeth weren’t meant for him. The paws on his body tightened their grip and slowly began to pull. The Eevee found himself sinking slowly into the darkness of that mysterious fox’s body, muscles rippling tightly around his head, his vision cut off as his face pressed down into the blackness. *Glllk…gllllrrrk.* Little shivers ran through the Eevee’s body as he sank deeper and deeper into that hot, dark abyss. He could hear the sounds of the fox’s stomach ahead of him, soft gurgles and groans, and they only continued to get louder as he approached. His chest was slipping in past the fox’s jaws now, tongue coating his fur in slick saliva, soaking him in it, his forelegs pinned in place against his body as he sank downwards inch by inch. No turning back now. The fox, for its part, made relatively quick work of him. Nate squirmed in that tight throat, but more to see what it felt like than any real desire to escape. This was his fate now. His nose pushed through into a larger area, and it twitched as the sweet, icing-like scent tickled it. It was even richer this deep inside the fox’s body, and he fought back the urge to sneeze. Nate felt his hips squeezing into the warm embrace of the fox’s throat, and he surged forward face-first into a thin pool of saliva at the bottom of the fox’s stomach. The swallows were slower now, but stronger, and he felt himself moving each time those muscles squeezed around him, squishing more and more of him down into the stomach of the hungry fox. He was beginning to curl up inside as the walls around him rippled over him, squishing him into a ball. Nate twitched his tail tip, squirming lightly as the fox’s tongue played over his hindpaws, and then… *Glllrrrppkk.* With that last swallow, he was sealed away entirely inside the larger creature, packed away into its stomach, presumably to be used as food for something larger than himself. The walls squeezed tightly around him as a rippling belch escaped from the fox’s maw. *UUUuuooorrrp…* Nate wiggled as much of the air was forced out, though breathing seemed to be no trouble. It was tighter inside now, the walls squeezing around him more closely, churning him gently. There was so much movement that he couldn’t stay in place no matter how much he tried, and soon he gave in, letting the walls slowly roll him over and over again, surrendering to the gastric processes of his predator. He felt a few gentle pats on the outside of that gut. “Packed all away where you belong!” The fox’s voice was very muffled but Nate could still make out the words. He decided to try answering back. “Am I just…food for you, then? Was that all this was about?” Maybe his forced euphoria was beginning to wear off, or maybe the reality of his situation was beginning to weigh on him, but the fox just giggled. He felt a soothing rub from outside. “Your name is Nate, right?” Nate blinked. He tried to think back, but his head was still a little fuzzy. Had he introduced himself? “Y-yeah?” “I’ll remember it.” The walls squished in tighter around Nate, and he realized the fox was hugging him. His cheeks felt warm. The stomach around him made a groaning sound. “Relax…you won’t really die, you know. You’ll continue on as a part of me. I think it will be more pleasant than you expect.” Nate hoped so. He wondered, if he asked nicely, if the fox would spit him out. It felt warmer than it had a minute ago. Were the walls getting stickier? “H-hey, fo–...I mean, Zero…” “Yes, cutie?” Thoughts were tumbling around in Nate’s head. It was definitely getting hotter and stickier inside the fox’s stomach. As the walls churned around him he could feel black goo clinging to his fur. It tingled faintly. “I-is it too late if…” He trailed off. “Changed your mind? Might be your last chance, sweetie.” There was silence for a long moment. Inside the fox, Nate closed his eyes and let a smile creep across his face. “N-no…you can keep me.” “You sure?” “Absolutely.” “Then just relax, cutie, and melt down…become part of me…” Nate felt paws pressing in at him, helping churn him inside that stomach. His head was swimming. Goo from the walls was coating his body, soaking into his fur, and a warm numb feeling was beginning to spread over and through him. It didn’t hurt. He knew he was being digested but for some reason he didn’t care. It wasn’t so bad, really. Maybe being part of something greater for once would feel nice. Part of something that cared. --- Zero sat back and let out a happy purring, rubbing his distended stomach. The Eevee inside had finally stopped moving, and was slowly being converted into gooey soup by his powerful stomach processes. “Mmmnh…see you on my hips, cutie,” he whispered, though he was certain the Eevee could no longer hear him. His stomach let out an answering gurgle. “I’ll take good care of you, Nate. Promise.”