Third stood on his toes to try and reach the text, but it was just beyond his finger’s grasp. He could only barely brush the spine and that resulted in the hardback sliding further back on the shelf.

A laugh huffed out behind him and Third turned with his hands on his hips. “Just because I’m short does not mean you get to laugh about it,” he scolded the wolf. It was another rookie who likely only had a few inches on him. “You’d have trouble reaching it, too.”

“No, because I’d use the stool that’s sitting right next to you,” the girl pointed out. He followed the line of her finger to a small stool tucked into an empty cubby at the bottom of shelf.

His shoulders slumped. “I knew it was there,” he said. “I was just seeing if I could reach it.”

The fang-filled smirk she gave said she didn’t believe him as she pulled out the lightweight stool and set it on the floor. With it she was easily able to pull the book down. “What do you need with this stuffy old thing, anyways?” she asked. “Looks like no one’s opened it in years.”

“I was looking for something to supplement the essay for history. The title looked like one of the sources from the class text.” It was close, but not exactly the same. A good, valid excuse.

“Wow, you’re really into this, aren’t you?”

Third shrugged. “Not really. It’s kind of boring. But if I don’t do well then my father might decide I don’t need to stay.”

She frowned as she returned the cubby back to the hiding place. “Oh. My parents don’t mind so much, as long as I don’t fail.”

“They might care if you were in, say, a bear village.”

She giggled. “That’s true. They’d want to know it was worth it. Come sit at our table?”

Third smiled and agreed, though he would have preferred not to. He was in here to research for the weapon, not indulge in random history assignments.

“Actually, he should probably come with us.” Third’s ear twitched as Toc settled his weight on Third’s left side.

Tic was a moment behind on the other. “Yeah, we need to recruit him for something.”

“For what?” the girl asked, sounding suspicious. “This isn’t another panty raid plan, is it? Because I swear, we will burn the boy’s dorm to the ground if Ken tries that again.”

Third raised his hand in annoyance. “Also, I am not wearing them. That’s just stupid.”

He could feel the twins looking at each other over his head. It was like they could talk to each other with just a glance, and he found himself envious. He was never that close with his brothers. “No panty raids,” they said in unison.

“Promise,” Tic said with a hand on his heart.

“Swear,” Toc followed with, making the sign of the wolf.

The female wolf - Third now suspected she was Sarah, but it was hard to say; he hadn’t really been paying attention that night - sighed. “Fine. Do you want me to check that out for you,” she said, pointing to the book in Third’s hands.

“Yeah, if you could? And put it in my room? Hopefully these two idiots won’t take long, but who knows.” It was better if she checked it out anyways, since there wouldn’t be any record of the book in his name.

The twins tried to frog-march him out of the library, but Third didn’t cooperate. He happily surged ahead so he was dragging them out by their arms and gave a small mouthed ‘sorry’ to the librarian as he passed. Once they were outside he rounded on them. “So what do you want?”

“Oh, my sweet little fox-”

“How innocent we thought you were-”

“How naive-”

“And yet here you are-”

“Trusting us so little-”

“Grown so suspicious-”

“Over a tiny favor.” They ended in unison, though Third’s ears twitched over the way they cut each other off and talked over each other like a constant game of one-ups.

“The last tiny favor was a prank that had me kicked out of my bedroom for the night. You wolves are weird,” Third said.

“Ah - but this isn’t some rookie prank. This is a Tic-Toc special,” Toc said, leaning on Third’s shoulder once again.

“We need to do something special before our dear sweet mother asks us to visit her,” Tic added, grabbing Third’s hand and interlacing their fingers.

“It’s our birthday, you see-”

“So we want to do something-”

“Extra special.”

“That sounds ominous,” Third said honestly. “What do you want to do?”

“Easy-”

“Simple-”

“Profound.”

Third waited, but they didn’t say anything until the hot sun had Third’s tail twitching and his ears sagging a bit.

“We want to make-”

“A special gift-”

“For a very special-”

“Friend.”

They were getting closer, whispering in his ears now.

“Only you can help.”

“Well, we picked you.”

“We want you to help.”

“Because we like you.”

“We think you’ll be the best.”

“Guys, just say it,” Third huffed. “All this lead up is just flattery and buttering me up. It won’t work if it’s something stupid, so just say it.”

Tic blushed and Toc scuffed a toe in the sand, both boys tall enough that they towered over the smaller fox and sandwiched him in their shadow. “We want to make-” that was Tic, but the answer came from Toc, whispered delicately in the shell of his ear “-porn.”

“What?” All the color had drained from his face, he was sure. They couldn’t be asking what he thought they were asking. Only packmates did that, and he wasn’t- he couldn’t- only Prime could-

“We want you to film it,” Tic whispered, and they were practically holding him up now. “Make it special just for him.”

“And then deliver it while we’re gone,” Toc said, arms wrapping around Third’s waist. “Sorry, didn’t mean to shock so much.”

“Tried to build up to it-”

“Ease into it-”

“That made it worse,” Third growled. “Learn to elaborate you damn fools. I thought you wanted to film me.”

They pulled away slightly at that, and he could feel them staring.

“And no, that was not an invitation.”

The twin in front of him pouted.