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American black bears are omnivorous, consuming a range of grasses, fruits, roots, nuts, mammals, fish, carrion and honey.
Niship hates grocery shopping.
So.
Fucking.
Much.
Look, normally he loves Cristian more than anything, but he has limits. Limits like the one millionth comparison between freeze-dried venison and sun-dried and air-dried. Limits like the distinction between blueberries from Michigan and blueberries from southern California and blueberries from fucking northern California. Limits like candied ginger and crystallised ginger. Seriously. Niship is about two seconds away from punching a display stand.
“Go look at the meats section,” Cristian says, always more in tune with Niship’s emotions than Niship himself is.
Niship bares his teeth out of principle. Besides, there’s nothing for him in the meats section. The hundred different distinctions between types of ground beef just piss him off. He doesn’t give a shit if his meat is knighted, Sir Loin can suck him sloppy, he just wants his basic-ass ground beef free of gristle and delicious as ever. Stuff the cheap shit in a bell pepper and he’s both entertained and well-fed, easy as that. Before Cristian came into his life, Niship would eat that every day for months.
And now, here Cristian is, sniffing boxes of berries and examining bags of root vegetables that Niship has literally never heard of before, all in the name of a “varied diet” or whatever.
Niship resigns himself to another hour in the produce aisle.
Black bears are generally solitary animals, but may be found in groups if food is particularly abundant in one area. They don’t defend specific areas and may share their home range with other bears.
Niship doesn’t think he’s ever really truly had a tiger friend. That’s just not something tigers do easily - befriend others like them. It’s hard to get along when they’re territorial by nature. Like having ten extroverts who don’t know each other, all in the same room. It’s just too much to endure all at once, all fighting for dominance, all wanting the control, not knowing who they can concede it to in a dignified way. Who deserves their territory, who can be trusted to hold it, who is stronger than them.
Herbivores would say that’s animalistic. Niship would say it’s just carnivore nature. When you’re starved for everything, you need to fight for what you can get. When you’re nailed down and treated like a danger for existing, you need to get violent. It quite literally gets bred into you. Really, it’s their own damn fault.
(Niship has a lot of thoughts about society.)
Being a lone tiger is what Niship always expected. He’d have his mate and their kids and some non-tiger friends, probably large herbivores or carnivores whose instincts wouldn’t get triggered by his presence, and he’s happy with that.
It sure confuses the hell out of Cristian, though.
When they cross paths with another bear hybrid while shopping for a new TV - because Juan splattered their old one in oil during a preening incident, and it turns out preen oil is hella stubborn - Niship expects the worst. If it was a tiger hybrid their shopping cart ran into, there’d be at least one growl thrown and probably a flashing of teeth to go with it. Add a healthy dose of hasty apologies, suspicious glares, the like. They’re carnivores, bears are carnivores too, it can’t be that much different. Niship is stepping in front of Cristian before the other hybrid even turns around.
“Oh, hey Maisie.”
They know each other?
“Hey, Cris,” the bear hybrid says, ears perked with delight and interest. She leans over the shopping cart to smile right into Cristian’s face. “Funny seeing you here! Getting a TV?”
“You guessed it,” Cristian says with a smile in return, a human smile of niceness and not an animal baring of teeth. “Oh, this is Niship, by the way. My boyfriend. Tiger, this is Maisie, she’s the one who has the honey stand at the farmer’s market.”
“Nice to meet you,” Niship says, polite, confused as hell. He stands there, just observing and trying to figure out how the hell bear social interactions work, while they make so much small talk. It reminds Niship of his grandma, a strong Indian elephant matriarch, and how she’d greet hybrids of every walk of life and every genus under the sun as she walked through the streets, the way she could talk to anyone about all sorts of small things and make it seem meaningful and genuine. He’d thought that was a luxury reserved for herbivores, but here Niship is, watching carnivores do it too. Or, well, omnivores, technically.
By the time Maisie returns to her shopping, having successfully enlisted Cristian’s help finding a cord in the electronics section, Niship is smiling a little despite himself. “Quit cheesing,” Cristian says upon seeing him. “Come on, we have a TV to buy.”
Completely antithetical to his lone tiger blood, Niship happily follows.
Black bears are superb climbers, with short curved claws that enable them to ascend trees.
Sometimes, when parties get too busy and people get too noisy, Juan likes to just fly away from his problems. Not for long enough to make Niship or Cristian worry, not far enough that Juan is ever really out of place, not hard enough to work up a sweat. Just a little fluttering around so the cool surface winds wash away his discomfort.
He’s no Olympic-level athlete, capable of real long-term flight and high speeds, but, like most hybrids, Juan can make use of his accessorial limbs. His wings get him off the ground as easily as his legs could break into a run. He makes a few lazy laps around the neighbourhood of the particular party Niship and Cristian dragged him to, soaring where he can get away with it, flapping his elliptical wings in steady circles, feeling the air push him onward and upward. Then, when he gets tired, he glides back to the house he started from.
Thanks to his hybrid, Juan is pretty good at landing without needing a runway like albatrosses or cranes do. He goes to one of the big trees in the back yard, lowering himself into its branches with a few easy flaps of his wings, taking a few seconds to find a good spot to perch before sitting down and dangling his legs. It has a great view of the party, and the leaves muffle the noise so it’s the perfect spot to relax.
“Hey, babe.”
Juan nearly falls out of the tree.
With fast reflexes and big, strong, paw-like hands that snatch at the back of Juan’s shirt, Cristian hauls him back onto his branch, firmly nestled in a little crook. “Sorry, I thought you knew I was here,” he says with a sheepish laugh.
When Juan is no longer wheezing with shock, he manages to look up and see what he’d missed before. Cristian’s tucked himself along a thick tree branch, lounging peacefully, looking for all the world like he could nap right there. He leans down in a way that emphasizes his hybrid - he barely flinches at hanging from the tree by his fingernails, or claws as it were, to kiss Juan’s cheek. “You fucking scared me,” Juan half-laughs, half-gasps. Cristian makes it up to him with a few more kisses until his face is flushed warm and he can’t help but giggle. “What are you even doing up here?”
Shrugging, Cristian scuttles down to where Juan sits, settling into a nearby nook. The branches of the tree shake and shudder a little, but nothing near concerning. Juan is a tree-happy hybrid, he knows what’s safe and what isn’t, though Cristian’s movement had initially startled him. He, ah, hadn’t expected Cristian to be capable of such stuff, if he’s honest. It’s always a little surprising to see a big hybrid like him making himself right at home midair. “I like climbing trees,” Cristian says. “Needed a break from the party.”
“Where’s Niship?”
Cristian waves a hand in the general direction of the party.
Normally Juan wouldn’t mind; he’s not that codependent. But Niship had been having some issues with his territorial instincts as they apply to him and Cristian - that’s how they got together in the first place, so Juan can’t help but wonder. “Is he okay alone?”
The warm look that Cristian gives him more than makes up for the momentary awkwardness he’d felt by asking. “Yeah,” Cristian says gently, “he’s usually fine with houseparties. It’s bars that freak him out - too many strangers.” He shrugs, like what can you do, which, given that Niship is a party-loving party-hater, is a fair enough assessment. “He’s probably unconsciously looking for us, but he’ll be alright for half an hour or so.”
Juan trills and tucks his feet under his thighs, getting comfy. If it’s okay with Niship, then Juan will happily abscond from the party for a while. He’s not a party guy.
Juan and Cristian, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G - but kissing around the trunk of the tree is a little difficult, so they mostly hold hands and Juan tucks a wing all the way around to cup Cristian’s shoulders. He’s always enjoyed watching social scenes from afar, so he’s content to stay perched and prim. One of his hybrid animals caws from a tree across the neighbourhood, then flies over to him and makes a very regal landing at the very top of the tree. Juan ruffles his wings at it, then caws right back. He can feel Cristian’s giggles in the movement of his back against Juan’s wings. It’s comfy.
They stay cosied up for a while until the winds get cold. The branches of the tree keep them nicely sheltered for the most part, but as the evening draws on, night winds begin to prevail. Juan’s hybrid side stirs at the touch of the wind, eager to soar. The rest of him would like to cosy up under a blanket. His eyes unfocus from the crowd after a while, instead following Niship as he meanders around the party enjoying himself. He never seems to leave the backyard.
“Sometimes I like to see how long it takes before he realises he’s circling the same tree over and over again,” Cristian says, making Juan burst into giggles.
“He can smell us here, then?” He fluffs up his wings and sways them in the air, which supposedly spreads the hay-dusty, balsa-wood, rich-moss smell of his feathers around a little more, not that he can really tell. They just smell like his coconut preen oil to him.
“I don’t think it’s conscious,” Cristian says. “He never seems to figure out that he’s doing it. Watch, here he comes again.”
And just as Cristian had said, Niship looks around, almost seeming lost, before making an arc around the base of the tree and joining a nearby cornhole game. Cristian bursts into low, rumbly, rolling guffaws. “When do we tell him?” Juan says through his giggles.
“Whenever you’re ready to go back to the party for a bit.” Cristian lets out a rumble that vibrates Juan’s feathers wonderfully, all low and soft and smooth. “We can just hang out for now.”
Juan trills and rubs his wing tips over the fuzz on Cristian’s arms. His boyfriends get him. Even if they’re a little silly and they all love to make fun of each other and they’re all so different in so many ways.
They are also competent swimmers, a skill that they use to hunt fish in rivers and lakes.
“Hey. I got us dinner.”
Juan gives Cristian a blank stare. He knows his sense of smell is pretty bad, at least compared to his boyfriends’, but normally he can still detect human food. If Cristian ordered takeout and Juan really can’t notice, it’s pretty bad. Right now, though, splashing in the river under a bright blue sky, swimming with his boyfriends, enjoying the sweetness of summer air, all he can smell is sunscreen and lakewater. He looks around, trying to spot a styrofoam container of some sort. Weird.
“Oh, you bitch- Cristian! Put the damn fish back in the river!”
Cristian’s sleepy, innocent expression instantly melts into mischief as Niship comes splashing and swearing towards them.
“You can’t do that, dude, we’re gonna get another fucking fine!”
“It’s fresh fish,” Cristian says with a shrug directed purely at Juan. He takes his hands out from behind his back, showing off the huge trout he’s holding by the jaw, supporting its plump belly with his other hand. Fuck, it looks delicious, so round and fleshy and fatty. Juan’s mouth is watering. “Most of the time I don’t get caught,” Cristian says with a sigh. When Niship catches up to them, he makes a big show of sighing and grumbling and whining that they can’t enforce a fine if he’s just doing catch-and-release, but eventually he does indeed let the trout go gasping and flailing back into the water. Juan pitifully watches it flash silver down the river. He really wanted to eat that, actually. “No fun,” Cristian sighs.
Niship glares at him. “Buy a fucking fishing license if you want to have fun.”
Cristian swipes at the water, sending a splash up at Niship’s face that soaks his hair and ears. Juan giggles (and adds fresh fish to his mental grocery list).
Similar to grizzly bears, black bears enter a deep winter sleep. American black bears construct dens to spend the winter in, often digging out a hollow in the earth or snow.
The LoLEsports calendar is really convenient for Cristian’s yearly cycle. Summer Playoffs hit right when he starts feeling the rush of summer and the abundance of fall, the strength that comes from feeding himself well for a full season. Worlds is even better, landing right when his body starts giving him extra bursts of energy to finish all his business before winter arrives. Then, when Worlds is over and November brings cool breezes and dry winds to southern California, Cristian can rest.
The year before last, it had just been Cristian and Niship. They’d taken the second bedroom in their apartment, the one that had previously been set aside as an office space, and put an inflatable mattress into it along with a minifridge, a water cooler, a calendar, and well over a dozen blankets and pillows. Everything got piled up on the mattress for Cristian to rearrange, bit by bit, day by day until the exhaustion set in to signify the end of the year.
Then, Cristian slept. Most of the time, he slept alone, since Niship isn’t a hibernator and also has to stream and keep up with typical life. Cristian never minded taking his hibernation alone - he’d get up once a day to use the restroom and drink some water and adjust his position, send text updates so his friends and family knew he was still alive. Weekends, though, were marked in Cristian’s mind by warmth and cuddles.
By the time the new year arrived, the exhaustion was beginning to recede, though it lingered in Cristian’s bones even after his hibernation ended in mid-January. He’s always figured that was a side effect of living in California when his ancestors lived farther south.
Last year, it was Cristian, Niship, and Juan. The second bedroom was partially being used as an office again, but now with Juan’s semi-permanent nest tucked into one corner. They ended up just putting all of Cristian’s denning stuff into the opposite corner - Juan’s nest had merely been a pine-green beanbag with a laptop, a mouse, and a nearby outlet at the time anyway, so it’s not like they had to be super mindful of space constraints. When Cristian began to shift things around to make a proper den that wouldn’t give him bedsores, Juan fluttered in to help. The den ended up littered with downy fluff and black feathers, but it was warmer than ever before, and the help was admittedly much-appreciated after a grueling push at Worlds that used up some of those critical energy reserves Cristian had built up over summer.
Then, again, Cristian slept. Most of the time, he had a companion, since Niship and Juan could take turns being with him. It was nice. Better than nice - it was restful, and always warm and comfy.
When the new year began, Cristian was awake enough to give midnight kisses to both of his boyfriends. He’d thought it was a fluke, a little burst of energy in the middle of what otherwise would be a regular hibernation. But when it finally came time to leave his den, the exhaustion didn’t linger at all.
Cristian’s excited for this coming winter.